Kepler-62c
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Kepler-62c (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation ''KOI-701.05'') is an approximately
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
-sized
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 in orbit around the star
Kepler-62 Kepler-62 is a K-type main sequence star cooler and smaller than the Sun, located roughly from Earth in the constellation Lyra (constellation), Lyra. It resides within the field of vision of the Kepler (spacecraft), ''Kepler'' spacecraft ...
, the second innermost of five discovered by
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's Kepler spacecraft around Kepler-62. At the time of discovery it was the second-smallest exoplanet discovered and confirmed by the ''Kepler'' spacecraft, after Kepler-37b. It was found using the
transit method Methods of detecting exoplanets usually rely on indirect strategies – that is, they do not directly image the planet but deduce its existence from another signal. Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For e ...
, in which the dimming that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. Its stellar flux is 25 ± 3 times Earth's. It is similar to Mercury.


Physical characteristics


Mass, radius and temperature

Kepler-62c is a
sub-Earth A sub-Earth is a planet "substantially less massive" than Earth and Venus. In the Solar System, this category includes Mercury (planet), Mercury and Mars. Characteristics Sub-Earth exoplanets are among the most difficult type to detect becau ...
, an exoplanet with a radius and mass smaller than Earth. It has an equilibrium temperature of . It has a radius of 0.54 . This is about the size of
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
, making it one of the smallest known exoplanets. However, the mass is currently not known, estimates place an upper limit of <4 , the real mass is expected to be significantly lower than this, say around 0.1 , comparable to the size of Kepler-37b.


Host star

The planet orbits a ( K-type)
star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...
named
Kepler-62 Kepler-62 is a K-type main sequence star cooler and smaller than the Sun, located roughly from Earth in the constellation Lyra (constellation), Lyra. It resides within the field of vision of the Kepler (spacecraft), ''Kepler'' spacecraft ...
, orbited by a total of five planets. The star has a mass of 0.69 and a radius of 0.64 . It has a temperature of 4925 K and is 7 billion years old. In comparison, the
Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...
is 4.6 billion years old and has a temperature of 5778 K. The star is somewhat metal-poor, with a
metallicity In astronomy, metallicity is the Abundance of the chemical elements, abundance of Chemical element, elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal currently detectable (i.e. non-Dark matter, dark) matt ...
( e/H of −0.37, or 42% of the solar amount. Its luminosity () is 21% that of the Sun. The star's
apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...
, or how bright it appears from Earth's perspective, is 13.65. Therefore, it is too dim to be seen with the naked eye.


Orbit

Kepler-62c orbits its host star with an orbital period of 12 days at a distance of about 0.092 AU (compared to the distance of Mercury from the Sun, which is about 0.38 AU). It receives about 25 times more
sunlight Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible spectrum, visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrare ...
than Earth does from the Sun.


Discovery

In 2009,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's ''
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 of p ...
'' 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, ...
, the instrument it uses to detect
transit Transit may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Transit'' (1980 film), a 1980 Israeli film * ''Transit'' (1986 film), a Canadian short film * ''Transit'' (2005 film), a film produced by MTV and Staying-Alive about four people in countrie ...
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, including Kepler-62; 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, which for Kepler-62c occurred roughly every 12 days (its orbital period), it was eventually concluded that a planetary body was responsible for the periodic 12-day transits. The discovery, along with the planetary system of the star
Kepler-69 Kepler-69 (''KOI-172'', ''2MASS J19330262+4452080'', KIC 8692861') is a G-type main-sequence star similar to the Sun in the constellation Cygnus (constellation), Cygnus, located about from Earth. On April 18, 2013 it was announced that t ...
were announced on April 18, 2013.


References

{{Sky, 18, 52, 51.06019, +, 45, 20, 59.507 Exoplanets discovered in 2013 Kepler-62 Transiting exoplanets Lyra 62c Sub-Earth exoplanets