NASA’s Kepler and Spitzer space telescopes have enabled astronomers to more accurately measure the radius of a planet outside our solar system. The finding has been published in The Astrophysical Journal .
The planet in question is Kepler-93b and, thanks to the measurements carried out, it has been confirmed that it is a super-Earth that measures almost one and a half times the size of our planet, with an uncertainty of only 119 kilometers on each side. of it . Given that scientists had assumed (in previous measurements from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii) that the mass of Kepler-93b was 3.8 times Earth’s, this new and accurate measurement indicates that the planet is probably made of iron. and rock, just like the Earth.
“With Kepler and Spitzer, we have captured the most accurate measurement to date of the size of an alien planet , which is critical to understanding these distant worlds. The measurement is so precise that it is literally like being able to measure the height of a 1.80-tall person with an accuracy of 2 centimeters if that person were standing on Jupiter, ”says Sarah Ballard, leader of the study.
Thus, the new data would summarize Kepler-93b as a planet that orbits a star located 300 light years away with approximately 90% of the mass of the Sun. In addition, the distance from its star, assumes that it will possess an average temperature of 760ºC, which would make it too hot for life. Apart from these details, we can now confirm that it measures around 18,800 kilometers in diameter, with a margin of error of 1% of the radius .
Image Credit: NASA / JPL
