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Kepler-11d
Kepler-11d is an exoplanet discovered in the orbit of the sun-like star Kepler-11. It is named for the telescope that discovered it, a NASA spacecraft named Kepler that is designed to detect Earth-like planets by measuring small dips in the brightness of their host stars as the planets cross in front. This process, known as the transit method, was used to note the presence of six planets in orbit around Kepler-11, of which Kepler-11d is the third from its star. Kepler-11d orbits Kepler-11 well within the orbit of Mercury approximately every 23 days. The planet is approximately six times more massive than the Earth, and has a radius that is three and a half times larger than that of Earth's. It is, however, far hotter than Earth is. Its low density, comparable to that of Saturn, suggests that Kepler-11d has a large hydrogen–helium atmosphere. Kepler-11d was announced with its five sister planets on February 2, 2011 after extensive follow-up studies. Name and discovery As with al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11
Kepler-11, also designated as 2MASS J19482762+4154328, is a Sun-like star slightly larger than the Sun in the constellation Cygnus, located some 2,150 light years from Earth. It is located within the field of vision of the Kepler spacecraft, the satellite that NASA's Kepler Mission uses to detect planets that may be transiting their stars. Announced on February 2, 2011, the star system is among the most compact and flattest systems yet discovered. It is the first discovered case of a star system with six transiting planets. All discovered planets are larger than Earth, with the larger ones being about Neptune's size. Nomenclature and history Kepler-11 and its planets were discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission, a mission tasked with discovering planets in transit around their stars. The transit method that Kepler uses involves detecting dips in brightness in stars. These dips in brightness can be interpreted as planets whose orbits move in front of their stars from the pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11f
Kepler-11f is an exoplanet (extrasolar planet) discovered in the orbit of the sun-like star Kepler-11 by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which searches for planets that transit (cross in front of) their host stars. Kepler-11f is the fifth planet from its star, orbiting one quarter of the distance (.25 AU) of the Earth from the Sun every 47 days. It is the furthest of the first five planets in the system. Kepler-11f is the least massive of Kepler-11's six planets, at nearly twice the mass of Earth; it is about 2.6 times the radius of Earth. Along with planets ''d'' and ''e'' and unlike the two inner planets in the system, Kepler-11f has a density lower than that of water and comparable to that of Saturn. This suggests that Kepler-11f has a significant hydrogen–helium atmosphere. The Kepler-11 planets constitute the first system discovered with more than three transiting planets. Kepler-11f was announced to the public on February 2, 2011 after follow-up investigations at several observa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11e
Kepler-11e is an exoplanet (extrasolar planet) discovered in the orbit of the sunlike star Kepler-11. It is the fourth of six planets around Kepler-11 discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Kepler-11e 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. Kepler-11e is most likely a gas giant like Neptune, having a density that is less than that of Saturn, the least dense planet in the Solar System. Its low density can probably be attributed to a large hydrogen and helium atmosphere. Kepler-11e has a mass eight times of Earth's mass and a radius 4.5 times that of Earth. The planet orbits its star every 31 days in an ellipse that would fit within the orbit of Mercury. Kepler-11e was announced on February 2, 2011 with its five sister planets after it was confirmed by several observatories. Name and discovery At the time when Kepler-11 was first noted as a host to a potential transit event, the star wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11c
Kepler-11c is an exoplanet discovered in the orbit of the Sun-like star Kepler-11 by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA telescope aiming to discover Earth-like planets. It is the second planet from its star, and is most likely a water planet with a thin hydrogen–helium atmosphere. Kepler-11c orbits Kepler-11 every 10 days, and has an estimated density twice that of pure water. It is estimated to have a mass thirteen times that of Earth and a radius three times that of Earth. Kepler-11c and its five sister planets form the first discovered system with more than three transiting planets. The Kepler-11 system also holds the record of being the most compact and the flattest system discovered. Kepler-11c and the other Kepler-11 planets were announced to the public on February 2, 2011, and was published in ''Nature'' a day later. Name and discovery Kepler-11c's name is divided into two parts: it is named for Kepler-11, the star around which it orbits. As planets with discoveries that are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11b
Kepler-11b is an exoplanet discovered around the star Kepler-11 by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA-led mission to discover Earth-like planets. Kepler-11b is less than about three times as massive and twice as large as Earth, but it has a lower density (≤ 3 g/cm3), and is thus most likely not of Earth-like composition. Kepler-11b is the hottest of the six planets in the Kepler-11 system, and orbits more closely to Kepler-11 than the other planets in the system. Kepler-11b, along with its five counterparts, form the first discovered planetary system with more than three transiting planets—the most densely packed known planetary system. The system is also the flattest known planetary system. The discovery of this planet and its five sister planets was announced on February 2, 2011, after follow-up investigations. Naming and discovery Kepler-11b is named in two parts. The first part of its name is derived from the fact that it orbits the star Kepler-11. As the discovery of Kepler- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methods Of Detecting Extrasolar Planets
Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the light from the parent star causes a glare that washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the exoplanets reported have been observed directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star. Instead, astronomers have generally had to resort to indirect methods to detect extrasolar planets. As of 2016, several different indirect methods have yielded success. Established detection methods The following methods have at least once proved successful for discovering a new planet or detecting an already discovered planet: Radial velocity A star with a planet will move in its own small orbit in response to the planet's gravity. This leads to variations in the speed with which the star move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hobby–Eberly Telescope
The Hobby–Eberly Telescope (HET) is a 10-meter (30-foot) aperture telescope located at the McDonald Observatory in Davis Mountains, Texas. The Hobby–Eberly Telescope is one of the largest optical telescopes in the world. It combines a number of features that differentiate it from most telescope designs, resulting in lowered construction costs: * The telescope's main mirror is fixed at a 55° angle and can only rotate around its base. A target is tracked by moving the instruments at the focus of the telescope; this provides access to about 70–81% of the sky at its location and allows a single target to be tracked for up to two hours. * The primary mirror is constructed from 91 hexagonal segments, which is less expensive than manufacturing a single large primary. The telescope is named for former Texas Lieutenant-Governor Bill Hobby and for Robert E. Eberly, a Penn State benefactor. Three instruments are available to analyze the light from the targets. All three instrum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepler-11g
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. Name and discovery Keple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effective Temperature
The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is often used as an estimate of a body's surface temperature when the body's emissivity curve (as a function of wavelength) is not known. When the star's or planet's net emissivity in the relevant wavelength band is less than unity (less than that of a black body), the actual temperature of the body will be higher than the effective temperature. The net emissivity may be low due to surface or atmospheric properties, including greenhouse effect. Star The effective temperature of a star is the temperature of a black body with the same luminosity per ''surface area'' () as the star and is defined according to the Stefan–Boltzmann law . Notice that the total (bolometric) luminosity of a star is then , where is the stellar radius. The definition of the stellar radius is obviously not straightf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallicity
In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as a convenient short term for ''"all elements except hydrogen and helium"''. This word-use is distinct from the conventional chemical or physical definition of a metal as an electrically conducting solid. Stars and nebulae with relatively high abundances of heavier elements are called "metal-rich" in astrophysical terms, even though many of those elements are nonmetals in chemistry. The presence of heavier elements hails from stellar nucleosynthesis, where the majority of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in the Universe (''metals'', hereafter) are formed in the cores of stars as they evolve. Over time, stellar winds and supernovae deposit the metals into the surrounding environment, enriching the interstellar medium and providing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Radius
Solar radius is a unit of distance used to express the size of stars in astronomy relative to the Sun. The solar radius is usually defined as the radius to the layer in the Sun's photosphere where the optical depth equals 2/3: :1\,R_ = 6.957\times 10^8 \hbox is approximately 10 times the average radius of Jupiter, about 109 times the radius of the Earth, and 1/215th of an astronomical unit, the distance of the Earth from the Sun. It varies slightly from pole to equator due to its rotation, which induces an oblateness in the order of 10 parts per million. Measurements The unmanned SOHO spacecraft was used to measure the radius of the Sun by timing transits of Mercury across the surface during 2003 and 2006. The result was a measured radius of . Haberreiter, Schmutz & Kosovichev (2008) determined the radius corresponding to the solar photosphere to be . This new value is consistent with helioseismic estimates; the same study showed that previous estimates using inflection poin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar Mass
The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. This equates to about two nonillion (short scale), two quintillion (long scale) kilograms or 2000 quettagrams: The solar mass is about times the mass of Earth (), or times the mass of Jupiter (). History of measurement The value of the gravitational constant was first derived from measurements that were made by Henry Cavendish in 1798 with a torsion balance. The value he obtained differs by only 1% from the modern value, but was not as precise. The diurnal parallax of the Sun was accurately measured during the transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769, yielding a value of (9 arcseconds, compared to the present value of ). From the value of the diurnal parallax, one can determine the distance to the Sun from the geometry o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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