Astronomers Discover Venus-Like Planet Orbiting a Dim Star Kepler-1649 (Download PDF)

Astronomers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope have discovered a Venus-like planet orbiting a dim star called Kepler-1649. Is one-fifth the diameter of our Sun and is located 219 light-years away from Earth.

Highlights:

• The tight orbit causes the flux of sunlight reaching the planet to be 2.3 times as great as the solar flux on Earth.
• The solar flux on Venus is 1.9 times the terrestrial value.
• The Venus-like planet tightly embraces its low-temperature star Kepler-1649 by encircling it every nine days.
• The discovery will provide insight into the nature of planets encircling around M dwarf stars.
• Astronomers call the newly found planet a super-Earth because it has about 3.6 times the mass of our Earth.
• One planet allows life to thrive, and one does not, despite having similar masses, comparable densities, etc,
• A member of the Kepler 1649b discovery team.
• Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days.
• It is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
• It has densest atmosphere of four terrestrial planets, consisting of more than 96 % CO2.
• The atmospheric pressure at its planet’s surface is 92 times that of Earth.

About Kepler Space Telescope:

• KST is an unmanned space observatory launched in 2009.
• It is tasked with determining how commonly, Earth-like planets occur throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
• Kepler is part of NASA’s Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions.
• KST has been designed for a statistical mission and not to probe into the environmental conditions of planets that exist in the so-called Goldilocks zone of their stars.