University of California, Los Angeles | 2016 May 26
UCLA, Washington researchers combine climate, orbit models to show that Kepler-62f might be able to sustain life
A distant planet known as Kepler-62f could be habitable, a team of astronomers reports.
The planet, which is about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra, is approximately 40 percent larger than Earth. At that size, Kepler-62f is within the range of planets that are likely to be rocky and possibly could have oceans, said Aomawa Shields, the study’s lead author and a National Science Foundation astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellow in UCLA’s department of physics and astronomy.
NASA’s Kepler mission discovered the planetary system that includes Kepler-62f in 2013, and it identified Kepler-62f as the outermost of five planets orbiting a star that is smaller and cooler than the sun. But the mission didn’t produce information about Kepler-62f’s composition or atmosphere or the shape of its orbit. ...
Kepler-62f: A Possible Water World
Space.com | 2016 May 13
The Effect of Orbital Configuration on the Possible Climates and Habitability of Kepler-62f - Aomawa L. Shields et al
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1603.01272 > 03 Mar 2016
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