Kepler-452b: A 1.6-Re Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star

We report on the discovery and validation of Kepler-452b, a transiting planet identified by a search through the 4 years of data collected by NASA’s Kepler Mission.

This possibly rocky 1.63+0.23−0.20 R⊕ planet orbits its G2 host star every 384.843+0.0070.012 days, the longest orbital period for a small (Rp < 2 R⊕) transiting exoplanet to date. The likelihood that this planet has a rocky composition lies between 49% and 62%. The star has an effective temperature of 5757±85 K and a log g of 4.32±0.09. At a mean orbital separation of 1.046+0.019−0.015 AU, this small planet is well within the optimistic habitable zone of its star (recent Venus/early Mars), experiencing only 10% more flux than Earth receives from the Sun today, and slightly outside the conservative habitable zone (runaway greenhouse/maximum greenhouse). The star is slightly larger and older than the Sun, with a present radius of 1.11+0.15−0.09 R⊙ and an estimated age of 3 Gyr. Thus, Kepler-452b has likely always been in the habitable zone and should remain there for another 3 Gyr. Discovery and Validation of Kepler-452b: A 1.6-Re Super Earth Exoplanet in the Habitable Zone of a G2 Star Jon M. Jenkins, Joseph D. Twicken, Natalie M. Batalha, Douglas A. Caldwell, William D. Cochran, Michael Endl, David W. Latham, Gilbert A. Esquerdo, Shawn Seader, Allyson Bieryla, Erik Petigura, David R. Ciardi, Geoffrey W. Marcy, Howard Isaacson, Daniel Huber, Jason F. Rowe, Guillermo Torres, Stephen T. Bryson, Lars Buchhave, Ivan Ramirez, Angie Wolfgang, Jie Li, Jennifer R. Campbell, Peter Tenenbaum, Dwight Sanderfer, Christopher E. Henze, Joseph H. Catanzarite, Ronald L. Gilliland, William J. Borucki
(Submitted on 24 Jul 2015)

Comments: 19 pages, 16 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Journal reference: The Astronomical Journal 150 : 56 (2015)
DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/150/2/56
Cite as: arXiv:1507.06723 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1507.06723v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jon Jenkins
[v1] Fri, 24 Jul 2015 02:05:15 GMT (4020kb)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.06723