Kepler-61b
extrasolar planet
Kepler-61b (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-1361.01) is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within parts of the habitable zone of the K-type main-sequence star Kepler-61. It is located about 1,100 light-years (338 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered in 2013 using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured, by NASA's Kepler spacecraft.
Characteristics
Mass, radius and temperature
Kepler-61b is a super-Earth, an exoplanet with a radius and mass bigger than Earth, but smaller than that of the ice giants Neptune and Uranus. It has an equilibrium temperature of 273 K (0 °C; 32 °F). It has a radius of 2.15 R🜨. The mass of Kepler-61b is 6.65 M🜨. At 2.15 radius and with a 6.65 mass its density would come to around 3.6 g/cm3 or slightly below the 3.9 g/cm3 of Mars. This planet may also have some "volatile" make up or be an ocean planet to explain the lower density.
Host star
The planet orbits a (K-type) star named Kepler-61.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kepler-61b” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.