Category
page 1Kepler-16

Kepler-16 b
Kepler-16b (formally Kepler-16 (AB)-b) is a Saturn-mass exoplanet consisting of half gas and half rock and ice. It orbits a binary star, Kepler-16, with a period of 229 days. "[It] is the first confirmed, unambiguous example of a circumbinary planet – a planet orbiting not one, but two stars," said Josh Carter of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian, one of the discovery team.

Kepler-16
Kepler-16 is an eclipsing binary star system in the constellation of Cygnus that was targeted by the Kepler spacecraft. Both stars are smaller than the Sun; the primary, Kepler-16A, is a K-type main-sequence star and the secondary, Kepler-16B, is an M-type red dwarf. They are separated by 0.23 AU, and complete an orbit around a common center of mass every 41 days.
The system is host to one known extrasolar planet in circumbinary orbit: the Saturn-sized Kepler-16b.