An international team of astronomers reporting in the Astrophysical Journal (arXiv.org) has discovered an Earth-sized exoplanet called Kepler 78b that orbits its parent star in a mere 8.5 hours.
The astronomers, led by Dr Buchhave from the University of Copenhagen, looked through more than 150,000 stars that were monitored by NASA’s Kepler Telescope. Their goal was to look for Earth-sized planets with very short orbital periods.
“We’ve gotten used to planets having orbits of a few days. But we wondered, what about a few hours? Is that even possible? And sure enough, there are some out there,” explained co-author Dr Joshua Winn of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kepler 78b is extremely close to its star – about 40 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun. Its orbital radius is only about 3 times the radius of the parent G-type star Kepler 78, also known as KIC 8435766.
The planet is most certainly not habitable, due to its extreme proximity to its host star.
Astronomers Discover New Earth-Sized Exoplanet Kepler 78b
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