Kepler-6
Kepler-6 is a G-type star situated in the constellation Cygnus. The star lies within the field of view of the Kepler Mission, which discovered it as part of a NASA-led mission to discover Earth-like planets. The star, which is slightly larger, more metal-rich, slightly cooler, and more massive than the Sun, is orbited by at least one extrasolar planet, a Jupiter-sized planet named Kepler-6b that orbits closely to its star. thumb|Kepler-6
Article
5 sectionsContents
- Nomenclature and history
- Characteristics
- Planetary system
- See also
- References
Kepler-6 is a G-type star situated in the constellation Cygnus. The star lies within the field of view of the Kepler Mission, which discovered it as part of a NASA-led mission to discover Earth-like planets. The star, which is slightly larger, more metal-rich, slightly cooler, and more massive than the Sun, is orbited by at least one extrasolar planet, a Jupiter-sized planet named Kepler-6b that orbits closely to its star. thumb|Kepler-6
==Nomenclature and history== Kepler-6 was named for the Kepler Mission, a NASA project launched in 2009 that aims to discover Earth-like planets that transit, or cross in front of, their home stars with respect to Earth. Unlike stars like the Sun or Sirius, Kepler-6 does not have a common and colloquial name. The discovery of Kepler-6b was announced by the Kepler team on January 4, 2010 at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society along with planets around Kepler-4, Kepler-5, Kepler-7, and Kepler-8. It was the third planet to be discovered by the Kepler spacecraft; the first three planets to be verified by data from Kepler had been previously discovered. These three planets were used to test the accuracy of Kepler's measurements.