Weird Exoplanets
This is the text version of the interactive 3D documentary. 한국어
All exoplanets › Part 4: Strange shapes
Kepler-16b
A planet with two suns
View in 3D · narrated- Distance
- about 250 light-years (about 2,400 trillion km, 250 years at light speed)
- Type
- Saturn-sized gas planet
- Size
- About Saturn’s mass
- Star
- Kepler-16 A and B (two stars)
- Year (orbit)
- About 229 days
- Temperature
- About −70 to −100 °C
- Found
- 2011
About 250 light-years, toward Cygnus
Kepler-16b is about 250 light-years away, toward the constellation Cygnus. The Kepler Space Telescope found it in 2011. It was the first planet ever confirmed to orbit two stars at once.
View this scene in 3D →Two suns
Two stars circle each other every 41 days, and this planet orbits around both of them from the outside. One trip around takes 229 days. Two suns rise in its sky, and things cast two shadows. The bigger star shines orange, and the smaller one shines red.
Why?The two stars pull on each other and circle together, and the planet loops widely around their shared balance point (center of mass). It sits at just the right distance, so its path doesn’t get thrown off.
Learn moreThe planet is a gas giant about the size of Saturn, and it is cold, around −70 to −100 °C. By timing how the stars block each other and how the planet blocks them, astronomers measured its mass and size very precisely.
View this scene in 3D →Sources: Wikipedia: Kepler-16b
Distances and facts come from published research and NASA, as noted under each planet. The 3D close-ups are artist’s views based on that research, not photographs. Distances to faraway stars can carry some uncertainty.