The Kepler space telescope is a retired space telescope launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. After nine years of operation, the telescope's reaction control system fuel was depleted, and NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018.
Kepler-9c is one of the first seven extrasolar planets, exoplanets, discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission, and one of at least two planets orbiting the star Kepler-9. Kepler-9c and Kepler-9b were the first exoplanets confirmed to be transiting their star. The planet's discovery was announced by the Kepler Mission team on August 26, 2010 after its initial discovery by Kepler. At the time, it was one of 700 planetary candidates noted by Kepler.
Kepler-10c is an exoplanet orbiting the G-type star Kepler-10, located around 608 light-years away in Draco. Its discovery was announced by Kepler in May 2011, although it had been seen as a planetary candidate since January 2011, when Kepler-10b was discovered. The team confirmed the observation using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and a technique called BLENDER that ruled out most false positives. Kepler-10c was the third transiting planet to be confirmed statistically, after Kepler-9d and Kepler-11g. The Kepler team considers the statistical method that led to the discovery of Kepler-10c as what will be necessary to confirm many planets in Kepler's field of view.
Kepler-11g is an exoplanet discovered in the orbit of the sunlike star Kepler-11 by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA satellite tasked with searching for terrestrial planets. Kepler-11g is the outermost of the star's six planets. The planet orbits at a distance of nearly half the mean distance between Earth and the Sun. It completes an orbit every 118 days, placing it much further from its star than the system's inner five planets. Its estimated radius is a little over three times that of Earth, i.e. comparable to Neptune's size. Kepler-11g's distance from the inner planets made its confirmation more difficult than that of the inner planets, as scientists had to work to exhaustively disprove all reasonable alternatives before Kepler-11g could be confirmed. The planet's discovery, along with that of the other Kepler-11 planets, was announced on February 2, 2011. According to NASA, the Kepler-11 planets form the flattest and most compact system yet discovered.
Kepler-9d is a planet in orbit around the sun-like star Kepler-9. Initially discovered by Kepler spacecraft, a terrestrial planet-searching satellite built and operated by NASA, Kepler-9d is most likely a Super-Earth, with an estimated radius approximately 60% larger than that of Earth's, although its exact mass cannot be determined. Kepler-9d orbits Kepler-9 every 1.56 days at a distance of .0273 AU from its star, an extremely close distance. Although Kepler-9d is the closest planet to its star in its system, it is named Kepler-9d instead of Kepler-9b because two gas giants, Kepler-9b and Kepler-9c, were confirmed first. The original studies into the system first suggested that Kepler-9d might be a planet, but a follow-up investigation made by the Kepler team later confirmed that it was; the confirmation of Kepler-9d as a planet was made public with the team's paper, which was published in the Astrophysical Journal on January 1, 2011. The team used telescopes at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to follow up on the Kepler space telescope's initial discovery.
A Kepler object of interest (KOI) is a star observed by the Kepler space telescope that is suspected of hosting one or more transiting planets. KOIs come from a master list of 150,000 stars, which itself is generated from the Kepler Input Catalog (KIC). A KOI shows a periodic dimming, indicative of an unseen planet passing between the star and Earth, eclipsing part of the star. However, such an observed dimming is not a guarantee of a transiting planet, because other astronomical objects—such as an eclipsing binary in the background—can mimic a transit signal. For this reason, the majority of KOIs are as yet not confirmed transiting planet systems.
Kepler-40, formerly known as KOI-428, is an F-type star in the constellation Cygnus. Kepler-40 is known to host at least one planet, Kepler-40b. The star is approximately 1.5 times more massive than the Sun, and is over two times its size; it was, at upon its discovery, the largest yet discovered with a transiting planet in its orbit. Kepler-40 was first noted as home to a possible transiting object by the Kepler spacecraft; the data on the system was released to the public. A team of French and Swiss scientists used follow-up data to determine the existence of the Hot Jupiter planet Kepler-40b, and later had their results published in a scientific journal on January 4, 2011.
Kepler-14b is an extrasolar planet in orbit around the primary star of the binary Kepler-14 system. It is currently the only planet known to exist in this star system. Kepler-14b is 8.4 times the mass of Jupiter and has a radius 1.14 times that of Jupiter, and it orbits its host star every 6.79 days. It was discovered by NASA-led Kepler mission, which noted the planet as a planetary candidate as early as March 2009, around the same time as the discovery of the first five planets discovered by Kepler. However, the team was unable to confirm the planet until extensive follow-up observations, as high-resolution imaging resolved the star Kepler-14 as a closely orbiting binary system. The Kepler team would have not noticed that Kepler-14 was a binary star based solely on initial radial velocity measurements, and found that if they had not realized this, their data on Kepler-14b would have been very inaccurate.
Kepler-14 is a binary star system targeted by the Kepler spacecraft. It is host to one known planet: the Jupiter-like Kepler-14b. The star system was identified by Kepler as a possible planetary host, but when imaging revealed that Kepler-14 was a binary star system and not a single star, the confirmation process became protracted. The stars are separated by at least 280 AU, and the stars complete an orbit around a common center of mass every 2800 years. Both stars are larger than the Sun. They are of similar absolute magnitudes; however, the primary star is brighter as seen from Earth.
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-12b is a hot Jupiter that orbits G-type star Kepler-12 some 900 parsecs (2,900 ly) away. The planet has an anomalously large radius that could not be explained by standard models at the time of its discovery, almost 1.7 times Jupiter's size while being 0.4 times Jupiter's mass. The planet was detected by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA project searching for planets that transit their host stars. The discovery paper was published on September 5, 2011.
Kepler-89 is a star with four confirmed planets. Kepler-89 is a possible wide binary star.
Kepler-62 is a star somewhat cooler and smaller than the Sun in the constellation Lyra, 1200 light years from Earth. 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 18, 2013 it was announced that the star has five planets, two of which, Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are within the star's habitable zone. The outermost, Kepler-62f, is likely a rocky planet.
Kepler-69 is a G-type main-sequence star similar to the Sun in the constellation Cygnus, located about 2,430 ly (750 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-102 is a star in the constellation of Lyra. It has five known exoplanets. Kepler-102 is less luminous than the Sun.
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-138, also known as KOI-314, is a red dwarf located in the constellation Lyra, 218 light years from Earth. 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.
Kepler-452 is a G-type main-sequence star located about 1,402 light-years away from Earth in the Cygnus constellation. Although similar in temperature to the Sun, it is 20% brighter, 3.7% more massive and 11% larger. Alongside this, the star is approximately six billion years old and possesses a high metallicity. Thus, Kepler-452 can be considered a solar twin, although it could considered to be a solar analog due to its age.
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 that orbits within the habitable zone, discovered in 2016.
Kepler-432 is a binary star system with at least two planets in orbit around the primary companion, located about 2,830 light-years away from Earth.
