Kepler-76b is a

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet". However, in the 1990s, it became known that Uranu ...

with mass about two times that of

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 Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

. It 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 (i.e. Jupiter analogue, Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to t ...

that orbits its star every 1.5 days. It was confirmed with the

Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey The Trans-Atlantic Exoplanet Survey, or ''TrES'', used three 4-inch (10 cm) telescopes located at Lowell Observatory, Palomar Observatory, and Teide Observatory to locate exoplanets. It was made using the network of small, relatively inexpens ...

and the

SOPHIE échelle spectrograph Sophie is a feminine given name, another version of Sophia, from the Greek word for "wisdom". People with the name Born in the Middle Ages * Sophie, Countess of Bar (c. 1004 or 1018–1093), sovereign Countess of Bar and lady of Mousson * Sop ...

Detection

The planet was discovered by observing the amount of

stellar flux In radiometry, radiant flux or radiant power is the radiant energy emitted, reflected, transmitted, or received per unit time, and spectral flux or spectral power is the radiant flux per unit frequency or wavelength, depending on whether the s ...

reaching the Earth. The existence of the planet was confirmed by also observing the reflected starlight from the planet, the shape of the star due to gravitational tug from the planet and radial velocity method. Finally, part of the planet was found transiting the parent star with secondary occultation also being detected. It is the first planet detected using Einstein's

special relativity In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between Spacetime, space and time. In Albert Einstein's 1905 paper, Annus Mirabilis papers#Special relativity, "On the Ele ...

Characteristics

Kepler-76b is slightly denser than

indicating that it is not a

puffy planet Hot Jupiters (sometimes called hot Saturns) are a class of gas giant exoplanets that are inferred to be physically similar to Jupiter (i.e. Jupiter analogues) but that have very short orbital periods (). The close proximity to their stars and hi ...

. Nonetheless, it is very hot with measured dayside temperature of 2830 K. It also exhibits a strong winds and variable clouds in the atmosphere.

References

External links

Table of confirmed planets
at NASA, Kepler mission {{Sky, 18, 52, 51.06019, +, 45, 20, 59.507 Exoplanets discovered in 2013 Exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope Hot Jupiters Cygnus (constellation)