BD+ 20''°'' 594b (also known as K2-56b) is a massive

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

discovered by the Kepler spacecraft in collaboration with the

HARPS The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision Echelle grating, echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO 3.6 m Telescope, ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The First l ...

spectrometer A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure Spectrum, spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomeno ...

at La Silla in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Naming

BD+20 594b indicates that the planet circles a star found in the

Bonner Durchmusterung In astronomy, Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung (BD) is an astrometric star catalogue of the whole sky, published by the Bonn Observatory in Germany from 1859 to 1863, with an extension published in Bonn in 1886. The name comes from ('run-t ...

catalogue, ''BD +20° 594'', the 594th entry in the +20-degree zone (declinations from +19 to +20 degrees), and that it is the first planet discovered orbiting that star. K2-56b indicates that the planet circles a star catalogued in the Kepler 2 mission catalogue (part of the extended K2 Kepler mission), the 56th one in the catalogue, and that it is the first planet discovered orbiting that star.

Planet

With a radius of 2.2 R_🜨 and a mass of 16.31 M_🜨, BD+20594b is substantially smaller than

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

. Taking the estimates of its radius and mass at face value, the composition of the planet would be rocky, hence making it classified as a

mega-Earth A mega-Earth is a proposed neologism for a massive terrestrial exoplanet that is at least ten times the mass of Earth. Mega-Earths would be substantially more massive than super-Earths (terrestrial and ocean planets with masses around 5–10 Earth ...

. BD+20594b's exact composition is still unknown. The planet was discovered on January 28, 2016 by astrophysicist Néstor Espinoza and his team from the Catholic University of Chile, using data from the two-wheeled Kepler mission (K2). It orbits a K-type star 496.08 light years away in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

Taurus. It is believed that planets with a radius greater than 1.6 times the Earth's are not usually rocky, making BD+20594b an exception to this rule.

References

External links

Largest Rocky World Found - Universe Today
Taurus (constellation) Exoplanets discovered in 2016 Transiting exoplanets Mega-Earths Exoplanets discovered by K2 {{extrasolar-planet-stub

Naming

Planet

See also

References

External links