New Information Revealed About Exoplanet Kepler-16b

Although space may seem like a huge deep void, it contains many undiscovered stars, planets and even galaxies. Considering that we are even smaller than a grain of sand in such a huge and gigantic area, it is not surprising that new space exploration is made every day.

Planets in outer space orbiting another star are called exoplanets. Although the vast majority of these exoplanets discovered are not habitable, the habitability of some is still questioned.

The mass of the exoplanet Kepler-16b, 245 billion light-years away, has been calculated

years ago now Kepler-16b is located 245 billion light-years from Earth. An exoplanet was discovered. With this discovery made in 2011, the first exoplanet orbiting two specific stars was detected. After the discovery, astronomers continued their research without slowing down.

Kepler-16b, launched into space by NASA Discovered during the transit of the Kepler moon and for astronomers it was an unexpected discovery. Astronomers generally use two methods for the discovery of exoplanets; one is the ‘transit method’, where a space-based telescope looks for faint and regular dips in starlight that indicate a star and an exoplanet passing between us, and the other is the ‘radial velocity’ method, based on the gravitational effects of planetary systems that also helped in the discovery of Kepler-16b.

Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham in the UK and his team used the ‘radial velocity’ technique to conduct new studies of Kepler-16b orbiting two stars. The team conducted studies on this exoplanet orbiting two stars, one of which is very bright, that could shed light on future research. The researches carried out finally gave results at the Haute-Provence Observatory in France and 1.93 meter telescope detected radial velocity signals from the bright star. radial velocity measurements, shows how far a star has moved and this plays a big role in helping astronomers have accurate measurements of the exoplanet’s mass. As a result of this research by Triaud and his team, it was revealed that the mass of Kepler-16b is not much different from previous estimates. Composed of half gas, half rock and ice, this exoplanet one-third of Jupiter announced.