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Kepler-186f
Summary
Kepler-186f (also known by its Kepler object of interest designation KOI-571.05) is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the red dwarf star Kepler-186, 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 Cygnus.
Kepler-186f orbits its star at a distance of about from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 130 days, and a mass and radius around 1.44 and 1.17 times that of Earth, respectively. As one of the more promising candidates for habitability, it was the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discovered in the habitable zone of another star. However, key components still need to be found to determine its habitability for life, including an atmosphere and its composition and if liquid water can exist on its surface.
Analysis of three years of data was required to find its signal. NASA’s Kepler telescope detected it using the transit method (in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured), along with four additional planets orbiting much closer to the star (all modestly larger than Earth). The results were presented initially at a conference on 19 March 2014 and some details were reported in the media at the time. The public announcement was on 17 April 2014, followed by publication in Science.
The only physical property directly derivable from the observations (besides orbit) is the size of the planet relative to the central star, which follows from the amount of occultation of stellar light during a transit. This ratio was measured to be 0.021, giving a planetary radius of 1.11±0.14 times that of Earth. The planet is about 11% larger in radius than Earth (between 4.5% smaller and 26.5% larger), giving a volume about 1.37 times that of Earth (between 0.87 and 2.03 times as large).
A very wide range of possible masses can be calculated by combining the radius with densities derived from the possible types of matter from which planets can be made.
Official source
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