NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork)Kepler-1647b
The longest-period transiting circumbinary planet, inside its two suns' habitable zone
Overview
Kepler-1647b is a circumbinary exoplanet that orbits the binary star system Kepler-1647, located 3,700 light-years (1,100 pc) from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It was announced on June 13, 2016, in San Diego at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It was detected using the transit method, when it caused the dimming of the primary star, and then again of the secondary star blended with the primary star eclipse. The first transit of the planet was identified in 2012, but at the time the single event was not enough to rule out contamination, or confirm it as a planet. It was discovered by the analysis of the Kepler light-curve, which showed the planet in transit.
Source: Wikipedia
NASA: Kepler-1647 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a F-type star. Its mass is 1.51968033 Jupiters, it takes 3 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 2.7205 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2016.
Why it matters
- Takes 1,107 days to orbit its binary — the longest period of any transiting planet when found in 2016.
- Jupiter-sized, so not habitable itself, but any large moons would sit in the habitable zone.
- Needed years of Kepler data because it transited so rarely.
NASA puts it this way: “Kepler-1647 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an F-type star. Its mass is 1.51968 Jupiters, it takes 3 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 2.7205 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2016.”
Discovery & system
- Discovered
- 2016 · Transit · Kepler
- Discovery paper
- Kostov et al. 2016
- Discoverers
- Kepler Space Telescope
- Host star
- Kepler-1647 · 6,210 K · 1.22 M☉
- System
- 1 known planet, 2 stars (circumbinary)
The system
| World | Period | Distance | Radius | Mass | Temp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kepler-1647 b | 3 yr | 2.72 AU | 1.06 R♃ | 1.52 M♃ | 243 K |
By the numbers
- Radius
- 1.06 R♃11.9 R⊕
- Mass
- 1.52 M♃483 M⊕
- Orbital period
- 3 yr
- Distance from star
- 2.72 AU407 million km
- Eccentricity
- 0.058elliptical
- Equilibrium temp.
- 243 K-30 °C
- Starlight received
- 0.6 × Earth
- Distance from Earth
- 3,954 ly1,212.5 pc
- Density
- 1.59 g/cm³0.29 × Earth
Sources
Image: NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork) · NASA media: generally free of copyright · image page
Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Taglines and highlights are editorial.