Kepler-11f is an

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

(extrasolar planet) discovered in the orbit of the sun-like star

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 space ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Kepler spacecraft The Kepler space telescope is a disused space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orb ...

, which searches for planets that

transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1979 film), a 1979 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countries in the world * ''Transit'' (2006 film), a 2006 ...

(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 Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. 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 observatories. Analysis of the planets and study results were published the next day in the journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

''.

Name and discovery

Kepler-11, known as

KOI or more specifically , are colored varieties of the Amur carp ('' Cyprinus rubrofuscus'') that are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens. Koi is an informal name for the colored variants of ''C. rubrofuscus'' ke ...

-157 when it was first flagged for a transit event, is the planet's host star, and it is included in the planet's name to denote that. Because Kepler-11f was discovered with five other planets, the planets of Kepler-11 were sorted by distance from the host star; thus, since Kepler-11f is the fifth planet from its star, it was given the letter "f." The name "Kepler" is derived from the Kepler satellite, a

Earth-trailing spacecraft that constantly observes a small patch of sky between the constellations Cygnus and

Lyra Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra was ...

for stars that are transited by, in particular,

terrestrial planet A terrestrial planet, telluric planet, or rocky planet, is a planet that is composed primarily of silicate rocks or metals. Within the Solar System, the terrestrial planets accepted by the IAU are the inner planets closest to the Sun: Mercury, Ve ...

s. As these planets cross in front of their host stars with respect to Earth, a small and periodic dip in the star's brightness occurs; this dip is noted by the spacecraft and tagged for future study. Scientists then analyze the transit event more carefully to verify if the planet actually exists and to gather information on the planet's orbit and composition (if possible). Follow-up observations were conducted at observatories at the

W. M. Keck Observatory The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have aperture primary mirrors, and when comp ...

's Keck 1 telescope in Hawaii; the

Shane Shane may refer to: People * Shane (actress) (born 1969), American pornographic actress * Shane (New Zealand singer) (born 1946) * iamnotshane (born 1995), formerly known as Shane, American singer * Shane (name), a masculine given name and a sur ...

and

Hale Hale may refer to: Places Australia *Hale, Northern Territory, a locality *Hale River, in southeastern Northern Territory Canada *Hale, Ontario, in Algoma District United Kingdom * Hale, Cumbria, a hamlet near Beetham, Cumbria *Hale, Greater Man ...

telescopes in California; the Harlan J. Smith and Hobby–Eberly telescopes in Texas; telescopes at the WIYN (including MMT) and

Whipple Whipple may refer to: People *Whipple (surname) (including a list of people with the surname) *Whip Jones (1909–2001), American ski industry pioneer, founder, developer and original operator of the Aspen Highlands ski area in Aspen, Colorado * W ...

observatories in Arizona; and the

Nordic Optical Telescope The Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) is an astronomical telescope located at Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma in the Canary Islands. The telescope saw first light in 1988, and was officially inaugurated during September 1989. Regular o ...

in the Canary Islands. The

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

was also used. According to NASA, Kepler-11's system is the most compact and the flattest system yet discovered, surpassing even the Solar System.

Host star

Kepler-11 is a

G-type star A G-type main-sequence star (Spectral type: G-V), also often, and imprecisely called a yellow dwarf, or G star, is a main-sequence star (luminosity class V) of spectral type G. Such a star has about 0.9 to 1.1 solar masses and an effective tempe ...

, much like the Sun is, and is located 659

parsec The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to or (au), i.e. . The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and ...

s away in the Cygnus constellation. It has 95% the

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

and 110% the

radius In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

of the Sun. Its mass and radius, combined with an approximate iron content (

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 ...

) of 0 and

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 ...

of 5680 K, makes the star very similar to the Sun, though slightly more diffuse and slightly cooler. However, the star is approximately 1.74 times the age of the Sun, and is estimated to have existed for eight billion years. Kepler-11 has six known planets in orbit:

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 den ...

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 t ...

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 brig ...

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 wh ...

, Kepler-11f, and

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 ...

. Kepler-11's five inner planets orbit closely to their host star, and their orbits would fit within that of

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

's. With an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's li ...

of 14.2, Kepler-11 cannot be seen with the

naked eye Naked eye, also called bare eye or unaided eye, is the practice of engaging in visual perception unaided by a magnifying, light-collecting optical instrument, such as a telescope or microscope, or eye protection. Vision corrected to normal ...

Characteristics

Kepler-11f is, at 2.3 times the mass of Earth, the least massive of the six planets discovered in the orbit of Kepler-11, although the planet's mass may range from 1.1 to 4.5, or from approximately that of Earth's mass to that of

Kepler-10b Kepler-10b is the first confirmed terrestrial planet to have been discovered outside the Solar System by the Kepler Space Telescope. Discovered after several months of data collection during the course of the NASA-directed Kepler Mission, which ...

, a rather large

confidence interval In frequentist statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a range of estimates for an unknown parameter. A confidence interval is computed at a designated ''confidence level''; the 95% confidence level is most common, but other levels, such as 9 ...

. Its

is the second smallest of the six planets discovered in the system at 2.61 times the radius of Earth. Kepler-11f has a density of about 0.7 g/cm³, comparable to that of the Solar System's least dense planet, Saturn. Kepler-11f is the fifth planet from Kepler-11, orbiting its host star every 46.68876 days at a distance of 0.25 AU. Its

orbital eccentricity In astrodynamics, the orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a dimensionless parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is a circular orbit, values betwee ...

is unknown. In comparison,

orbits the Sun every 87.97 days at a distance of 0.387 AU. Kepler-11f has an orbital

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 89.4°; it can be seen almost edge-on with respect to Earth. Its surface

equilibrium temperature The planetary equilibrium temperature is a theoretical temperature that a planet would be if it were a black body being heated only by its parent star. In this model, the presence or absence of an atmosphere (and therefore any greenhouse effect) is ...

is 544 K, over twice the surface equilibrium temperature of

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and about two-thirds the surface temperature of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

. Kepler-11f's low density, characteristic of the outer planets of the system, suggests that a hydrogen–helium atmosphere is present on these planets, classifying it as "

gas dwarf A Mini-Neptune (sometimes known as a gas dwarf or transitional planet) is a planet less massive than Neptune but resembling Neptune in that it has a thick hydrogen–helium atmosphere, probably with deep layers of ice, rock or liquid oceans (mad ...

" due to its small size and mass. The gaseous content of the planet is calculated at a few percent of its total mass, but the envelope accounts for 70-80% of the planet's total volume. Kepler-11f's low density is not shared by the planets

and

because stellar irradiation has reduced their atmospheres to a thin layer. The planets accreted such atmospheres because they formed within the first few million years of the system's existence, when a

protoplanetary disk A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, be ...

was still present.

References

{{Kepler-11 Hot Neptunes Exoplanets discovered in 2011 Transiting exoplanets Giant planets Cygnus (constellation) 11f f