Kepler-16 b
Sign in to saveKepler-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.
Key facts
- Planet.name
- Kepler-16b
- Planet.image
- Kepler-16.jpg
- Planet.caption
- An artist's rendering of the Kepler-16 system, showing the binary star being orbited by Kepler-16b (black body)
- Planet.discoverer
- Laurance Doyle
- Planet.discovered
- 15 September 2011
- Planet.discovery_method
- Transit (Kepler Mission)
- Planet.apsis
- astron
- Planet.eccentricity
- 0.0069 ± 0.0015
- Planet.period
- 228.776 ± 0.037 d
- Planet.inclination
- 90.0322 ± 0.0023
- Planet.asc_node
- 0.003 ± 0.013
- Planet.long_periastron
- 106.51 ± 0.32
- Planet.arg_peri
- 318 ± 22
- Planet.star
- Kepler-16 (KOI-1611)
- Planet.mean_radius
- 0.7538 (± 0.0025)
- Planet.mass
- 0.333 (± 0.015)
- Planet.density
- 0.964 (± 0.047) g cm−3
- Planet.surface_grav
- 14.52 (± 0.7) m/s²
via Wikipedia infobox
Article
10 sectionsContents
- Discovery
- Characteristics
- Mass, radius and temperature
- Host stars
- Orbit
- Potential habitability
- Name
- Gallery
- References
- External links
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-16b is also unusual in that it falls inside the radius that was thought to be the inner limit for planet formation in a binary star system. According to Sara Seager, a planetary expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was thought that for a planet to have a stable orbit around such a system, it would need to be at least seven times as far from the stars as the stars are from each other. Kepler-16b's orbit is only about half that distance.