Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Kepler-62f
Summary
Kepler-62f (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-701.04) is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the star Kepler-62, the outermost of five such planets discovered around the star by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about from Earth in the constellation of Lyra.
Kepler-62f orbits its star at a distance of from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 267 days, and has a radius of around 1.41 times that of Earth. It is one of the more promising candidates for potential habitability, as its parent star is a relatively quiet star, and has less mass than the Sun – thus it can live up to a span of about 30 billion years or so. Based on its size, Kepler-62f is likely a terrestrial or ocean-covered planet. However, key components of the exoplanet still need to be assessed to determine habitability; such as its atmosphere if one exists, since it lies within the outer part of its host star's habitable zone.
The discovery of the exoplanet (along with Kepler-62e) was announced in April 2013 by NASA as part of the Kepler spacecraft data release. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. According to scientists, it is a potential candidate to search for extraterrestrial life, and was chosen as one of the targets to study by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program.
Kepler-62f is a super-Earth, placing it in the class of exoplanets 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 , close to that of Mars. It has a radius of 1.4 , placing it below the radius of ≥1.6 where it would otherwise be a mini-Neptune with a volatile composition, with no solid surface. Due to its radius, it is likely a rocky planet. However, the mass isn't constrained yet, estimates place an upper limit of
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.