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Kepler-4b, initially known as KOI 7.01, is an extrasolar planet first detected as a transit by the Kepler spacecraft. Its radius and mass are similar to that of Neptune; however, due to its proximity to its host star, it is substantially hotter than any planet in the Solar System. The planet's discovery was announced on January 4, 2010, in Washington, D.C., along with four other planets that were initially detected by the Kepler spacecraft and subsequently confirmed by telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory.
Kepler-4 is a sunlike star located about 1626 light-years away in the constellation Draco. It is in the field of view of the Kepler Mission, a NASA operation purposed with finding Earth-like planets. Kepler-4b, a Neptune-sized planet that orbits extremely close to its star, was discovered in its orbit and made public by the Kepler team on January 4, 2010. Kepler-4b was the first discovery by the Kepler satellite, and its confirmation helped to demonstrate the spacecraft's effectiveness.
An exoplanet is a planet located outside the Solar System. The first evidence of an exoplanet was noted as early as 1917, but was not recognized as such until 2016; no planet discovery has yet come from that evidence. What turned out to be the first detection of an exoplanet was published among a list of possible candidates in 1988, though not confirmed until 2003. The first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. As of 1 May 2024, there are 5,662 confirmed exoplanets in 4,169 planetary systems, with 896 systems having more than one planet. This is a list of the most notable discoveries.
Kepler-10, formerly known as KOI-72, is a Sun-like star in the constellation of Draco that lies 607 light-years from Earth. Kepler-10 was targeted by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, as it was seen as the first star identified by the Kepler mission that could be a possible host to a small, transiting exoplanet. The star is slightly less massive, slightly larger, and slightly cooler than the Sun; at an estimated 11.9 billion years in age, Kepler-10 is 2.3 times the age of the Sun.
Kepler-40b, formerly known as KOI-428b, is a hot Jupiter discovered in orbit around the star Kepler-40, which is about to become a red giant. The planet was first noted as a transit event by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. The Kepler team made data collected by its satellite publicly available, including data on Kepler-40; French and Swiss astronomers used the equivalent to one night of measurements on the SOPHIE échelle spectrograph to collect all the data needed to show that a planet was producing the periodic dimming of Kepler-40. The planet, Kepler-40b, is twice the mass of Jupiter and slightly larger than it in size, making it as dense as Neptune. The planet is also nearly thirteen times hotter than Jupiter and orbits five times closer to its star than Mercury is from the Sun.
Kepler-39b, is a confirmed extrasolar object discovered orbiting the F-type star Kepler-39. It is eighteen times more massive than Jupiter, and is about five fourths its size. The planet orbits its host star at about 15% of the average distance between the Earth and Sun. Kepler-39b's host star was investigated by European astronomers along with three other stars, including the host star of Kepler-40b, using equipment at the Haute-Provence Observatory in France. Collection and analysis of data in late 2010 led to the confirmation of Kepler-39b. The discovery paper was published in a journal on June 6, 2011.
Kepler-41 or KOI-196 is a star in the constellation Cygnus. It is a G-type main-sequence star, like the Sun, and it is located about 3,510 light-years away. It is fairly similar to the Sun, with 115% of its mass, a radius of 129% times that of the Sun, and a surface temperature of 5,750 K. Search for stellar companions to Kepler-41 in 2013-2014 has yielded inconclusive results, compatible with Kepler-41 being the single star.
Kepler-70, also known as KIC 5807616 and KOI-55, is a star about 3,600 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, with an apparent visual magnitude of 14.87. This is too faint to be seen with the naked eye; viewing it requires a telescope with an aperture of 40 cm (20 in) or more. A subdwarf B star, Kepler-70 passed through the red giant stage some 18.4 million years ago. In its present-day state, it is fusing helium in its core. Once it runs out of helium it will contract to form a white dwarf. It has a relatively small radius of about 0.2 times the Sun's radius; white dwarfs are generally much smaller. The star may be host to a planetary system with two planets, although later research indicates that this is not in fact the case.
Kepler-42, formerly known as KOI-961, is a red dwarf located in the constellation Cygnus and approximately 131 light years from the Sun. It has three known extrasolar planets, all of which are smaller than Earth in radius, and likely also in mass.
Kepler-69 is a G-type main-sequence star similar to the Sun in the constellation Cygnus, located about 2,390 ly (730 pc) from Earth. On April 18, 2013 it was announced that the star has two planets. Although initial estimates indicated that the terrestrial planet Kepler-69c might be within the star's habitable zone, further analysis showed that the planet very likely is interior to the habitable zone and is far more analogous to Venus than to Earth and thus completely inhospitable.
Kepler-88 is a G-type star 1,230 light-years away in the constellation of Lyra, with three confirmed exoplanets. SIMBAD lists a subgiant spectral type of G8IV, while other sources give it a main sequence spectral type of G6V. The latter is more consistent with its properties.
Kepler-61 is a K-type main-sequence star approximately 1,100 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It is located within the field of vision of the Kepler spacecraft, the satellite that NASA's Kepler Mission used to detect planets that may be transiting their stars. On April 24, 2013 it was announced that the star has an extrasolar planet orbiting in the inner edge of the habitable zone, named Kepler-61b.
Kepler-432b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-1299.01) is a hot super-Jupiter (or "warm" super-Jupiter) exoplanet orbiting the giant star Kepler-432 A, the innermost of two such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 2,830 light-years (870 parsecs, or nearly 2.684×1016 km) from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.
KOI-256 is a double star located in the constellation Cygnus approximately 575 light-years (176 pc) from Earth. While observations by the Kepler spacecraft suggested the system contained a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf, later studies determined that KOI-256 was a binary system composed of the red dwarf orbiting a white dwarf.
Kepler-419c is a super-Jupiter exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the star Kepler-419, the outermost of two such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 3,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The exoplanet was found by using the transit timing variation method, in which the variations of transit data from an exoplanet are studied to reveal a more distant companion.
Kepler-1229 is a red dwarf star located about 870 light-years (270 pc) away from the Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It is known to host a super-Earth exoplanet within its habitable zone, Kepler-1229b, which was discovered in 2016.
Kepler-419 is an F-type main-sequence star located about 3,280 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It is located within the field of vision of the Kepler spacecraft, the satellite that NASA's Kepler Mission used to detect planets that may be transiting their stars. In 2012, a potential planetary companion in a very eccentric orbit was detected around this star, but its planetary nature was not confirmed until 12 June 2014, when it was named Kepler-419b. A second planet was announced orbiting further out from the star in the same paper, named Kepler-419c.
Kepler-432 is a binary star system with at least two planets in orbit around the primary companion, located about 2,780 light-years away from Earth.
Kepler-13 or KOI-13 is a stellar triple star system consisting of Kepler-13A, around which an orbiting hot Jupiter exoplanet was discovered with the Kepler spacecraft in 2011, and Kepler-13B a common proper motion companion star which has an additional star orbiting it.
HD 3167 is a single, orange-hued star in the zodiac constellation of Pisces that hosts a system with three exoplanets. The star is too faint to be seen with the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 8.97. The distance to HD 3167 can be determined from its annual parallax shift of 21.1363 mas as measured by the Gaia space observatory, yielding a range of 154 light years. It has a relatively high proper motion, traversing the celestial sphere at the rate of 0.204″ per year. Since it was first photographed during the Palomar observatory sky survey in 1953, it had moved over 12.5″ by 2017. The star is moving away from the Earth with an average heliocentric radial velocity of +19.5 km/s.
References
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- 1 2 Homogeneous studies of transiting extrasolar planets – V. New results for 38 planets
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Summary Table of Kepler Discoveries". NASA. 2 May 2011. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 3 May 2011.