kosmos: Kepler space telescope

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The Kepler space telescope was a space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler (who, ironically, was convinced that planetary systems did not exist around any of the stars) the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. After nine and a half years of operation, the telescope's reaction control system fuel was depleted, and NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018. Designed to survey a portion of Earth's region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and to estimate how many of the bil…

Evidence: 60 • authority: 72

Kepler-452b (sometimes quoted to be an Earth 2.0 or Earth's Cousin based on its characteristics; also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-7016.01) is a disputed super-Earth exoplanet candidate. Initial reports claim it is orbiting within the inner edge of the habitable zone of the sun-like star Kepler-452 and is the only planet in the system discovered by the Kepler space telescope. It is located about 1,800 light-years (550 pc) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. Two subsequent reports refuted the claim but additional work has reestablished the claim. Kepler-452b orbits its star at a distance of 1.04 AU (156 million km; 97 million mi) from its host star (nearly th…

Evidence: 60 • authority: 72

Kepler-186f (also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-571.05) is a candidate Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Kepler-186, the outermost of five planets discovered around the star by NASA's Kepler space telescope. It is located about 580 light-years (180 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. Kepler-186f orbits its star at a distance of about 0.43 AU (64,000,000 km; 40,000,000 mi) from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 130 days, and a radius around 1.17 times that of Earth. As one of the more promising candidates for habitability, it was the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discover…

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

Kepler-69c (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-172.02) is a confirmed super-Earth exoplanet, likely rocky, orbiting the Sun-like star Kepler-69, the outermore of two such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 2,430 light-years (746 parsecs) from Earth. Kepler-69c orbits its star at a distance of 0.75 AU (112,000,000 km; 70,000,000 mi) from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 242.46 days, has a mass at least 2.14 times that of Earth, and has a radius of around 2.2 times that of Earth. Initial findings found that it could possibly be habitable, however updated analysis shows that Kepler-69c resides in the inner edge of the hab…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Kepler-438b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-3284.01) is a confirmed near-Earth-sized exoplanet. It is likely rocky. It orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone of a red dwarf, Kepler-438, about 460.2 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. It receives 1.4 times the solar flux of Earth. The planet was discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. NASA announced the confirmation of the exoplanet on 6 January 2015.

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Kepler-1625b is a super-Jupiter exoplanet orbiting the Sun-like star Kepler-1625 about 2,500 parsecs (8,200 light-years) away in the constellation of Cygnus. The large gas giant is approximately the same radius as Jupiter, and orbits its star every 287.4 days. In 2017, hints of a Neptune-sized exomoon in orbit of the planet were found using photometric observations collected by the Kepler Mission. Further evidence for a Neptunian moon was found the following year using the Hubble Space Telescope, where two independent lines of evidence constrained the mass and radius to be Neptune-like. The mass-signature has been independently recovered by two other teams. However, the radius-signature was…