Kepler-419b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation ''KOI-1474.01'') is a

hot Jupiter Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to their stars and high surface-atmosphere temp ...

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 ...

orbiting the star Kepler-419, the outermost of two such planets discovered by

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 ...

. It is located about 3,400

light-year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s (1040

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 from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

Characteristics

Mass, radius and temperature

Kepler-419b is a

, an exoplanet that has a radius and mass near that of the planet

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

, but with an extremely high temperature. It has a temperature of .http://www.hpcf.upr.edu/~abel/phl/hec_plots/hec_orbit/hec_orbit_Kepler-419_b.png It has a mass of 2.5 and a radius of 0.96 .

Host star

The planet orbits an ( F-type)

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

named Kepler-419. The star has a mass of 1.39 and a radius 1.75 . It has a surface temperatures of 6430 K and is 2.8 billion years old. In comparison, the Sun is about 4.6 billion years old and has a surface temperature of 5778 K. The star's

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 ...

, or how bright it appears from Earth's perspective, is 13. It is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.

Orbit

Kepler-419c orbits its host star with 270% of the Sun's luminosity (2.7 ) about every 67 days at a distance of 0.37 AU (close to the orbital distance of Mercury from the Sun, which is 0.38 AU). It has a highly eccentric orbit, with an eccentricity of 0.833.

Discovery

In 2009,

Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws o ...

spacecraft was completing observing stars on its

photometer A photometer is an instrument that measures the strength of electromagnetic radiation in the range from ultraviolet to infrared and including the visible spectrum. Most photometers convert light into an electric current using a photoresistor, ph ...

, the instrument it uses to detect

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 ...

events, in which a planet crosses in front of and dims its host star for a brief and roughly regular period of time. In this last test, Kepler observed stars in the

Kepler Input Catalog The Kepler Input Catalog (or KIC) is a publicly searchable database of roughly 13.2 million targets used for the Kepler Spectral Classification Program (SCP) and ''Kepler''. Overview The Kepler SCP targets were observed by the 2MASS project ...

, including Kepler-419, the preliminary light curves were sent to the Kepler science team for analysis, who chose obvious planetary companions from the bunch for follow-up at observatories. Observations for the potential exoplanet candidates took place between 13 May 2009 and 17 March 2012. After observing the respective transits, the first planet, Kepler-419b, was announced.

References

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia is an astronomy website, founded in Paris, France at the Meudon Observatory by Jean Schneider in February 1995, which maintains a database of all the currently known and candidate extrasolar planets, with indi ...