Skip Navigation

Multimedia

Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-452b

Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-452b

The first Earth-size planet discovered around a near solar twin, the discovery of Kepler-452b brings us closer than ever to finding an Earth-like planet.

Credit

NASA/JPL-Caltech

ENLARGE

Related

This infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope called a spectrum tells astronomers that a distant gas planet, a so-called "hot Jupiter" called HD 209458b, might be smothered with high clouds. It is one of the first spectra of an alien world.
More
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
Cracking the Code of Faraway Worlds: an Exoplanet Atmosphere
NASA's Kepler spacecraft has spotted a planet that alternately runs late and early in its orbit because a second, "invisible" world is tugging on it. This is the first definite detection of a previously unknown planet using this method. No other technique could have found the unseen companion.
More
An Invisible World
An Invisible World
Of the more than 1,000 verified planets found by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, eight are less than twice Earth-size and in their stars' habitable zone. All eight orbit stars cooler and smaller than our sun. The search continues for Earth-size habitable zone worlds around sun-like stars.
More
NASA Kepler's Hall of Fame: Small Habitable Zone Exoplanets
NASA Kepler's Hall of Fame: Small Habitable Zone Exoplanets
NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits the star.
More
NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems
NASA's Kepler announces 11 new planetary systems
This image shows the HR 8799 planets with starlight optically suppressed and data processing conducted to remove residual starlight. The star is at the center of the blackened circle in the image. The four spots indicated with the letters b through e are the planets. This is a composite image using 30 wavelengths of light and was obtained over a period of 1.25 hours on June 14 and 15, 2012.
More
Planetary Family Portrait
Planetary Family Portrait
This image from NASA's Kepler mission shows the telescope's full field of view -- an expansive star-rich patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.
More
Two Zooms in the Kepler Field
Two Zooms in the Kepler Field
Celebrate Valetine's Day with a hot Jupiter that tightly hugs its star.
More
A Valentine for a Hot Jupiter
Hot Jupiter Valentine
An artist’s impression showing a newly discovered Jupiter twin gas giant orbiting the solar twin star, HIP 11915. The planet is of a very similar mass to Jupiter and orbits at the same distance from its star as Jupiter does from the Sun.
More
Artist’s Impression of a Jupiter twin orbiting HIP 11915
Artist’s Impression of a Jupiter twin orbiting HIP 11915
If astronomers could somehow pull planets out of the sky and analyze them in the laboratory, it might look something like this artistically altered image illustrating new research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
More
An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
An Astronomer's Fantasy: Planets in the Lab
This artist's animation shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury.
More
Planetary Demolition Derby
Planetary Demolition Derby
A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has shown that a planet is making the star that it orbits act much older than it actually is, as explained in our latest press release. The artist’s illustration featured in the main part of this graphic depicts the star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b.
More
WASP-18b: A 'Hot Jupiter'
WASP-18b: A 'Hot Jupiter'
This artist's concept shows "The Behemoth," an enormous comet-like cloud of hydrogen bleeding off of a warm, Neptune-sized planet just 30 light-years from Earth. Also depicted is the parent star (a faint red dwarf) of expolanet GJ 436.
More
"Behemoth" Bleeding Atmosphere Around a Warm Exoplanet
"Behemoth" Bleeding Atmosphere Around a Warm Exoplanet
Kepler-10b must be a scorched world, orbiting at a distance that's more than 20 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our own Sun, with a daytime temperature expected to be more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
More
Imagined View from Planet Kepler 10-B
Imagined View from Planet Kepler 10-B
This artist's conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star's habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist.
More
Kepler-22b: Closer to Finding Another Earth
Kepler-22b: Closer to Finding Another Earth
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a visible light view of the outer dust around the young star HD100546. The position of the newly discovered protoplanet is marked with an orange spot.
More
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the dust disc around the young star HD 100546
NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view of the dust disc around the young star HD 100546
This image shows our own back yard, astronomically speaking, from a vantage point about 30 light-years away from the sun. It highlights the population of tiny brown dwarfs recently discovered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE (red circles).
More
Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors
Highlighting our Tiniest Neighbors
This artist's animation illustrates a massive asteroid belt in orbit around a star the same age and size as our Sun. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
More
Band of Rubble (Artist Concept)
Band of Rubble (Artist Concept)
A team of researchers has devised a way to measure the internal properties of stars—a method that offers more accurate assessments of their orbiting planets.
More
Verified by vibration
Verified by vibration
In this artist's impression, a disk of dusty material leftover from star formation girds two young stars like a hula hoop. As the two stars whirl around each other, they periodically peek out from the disk, making the system appear to "blink" every 93 days.
More
Dusty Hula Hoop Rings 'Blinking' Stellar Duo
Dusty Hula Hoop Rings 'Blinking' Stellar Duo
This artist's concept shows what a fiery hot star and its close-knit planetary companion might look close up if viewed in visible (left) and infrared light.
More
Blinded by the Light
Blinded by the Light
For the first time since exoplanets, or planets around stars other than the sun, were discovered almost 20 years ago, X-ray observations have detected an exoplanet passing in front of its parent star.
More
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
Exo-eclipse in x-ray vision
This artist's concept shows the closest known planetary system to our own-Epsilon Eridani. Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the system hosts two asteroid belts, in addition to previously identified candidate planets and an outer comet ring.
More
Double the Rubble
Double the Rubble
Twice as big in volume as the Earth, HD 40307 g straddles the line between "Super-Earth" and "mini-Neptune" and scientists aren't sure if it has a rocky surface or one that's buried beneath thick layers of gas and ice. One thing is certain though: at eight times the Earth's mass, its gravitational pull is much, much stronger.
More
HD 40307 g
Experience the Gravity of a Super Earth
The first planet to have its clouds mapped showed us what weather looked like on a planet outside our solar system.
More
Infographic: Planet Kepler-7b, cloud mapped
Infographic: Profile of planet Kepler-7b
First we learned the Earth was round. Then we found out we were not at the center of the cosmos, just another planet orbiting the sun...
More
A Whole New Universe
A Whole New Universe

Explore Alien Worlds

Exoplanet Travel Bureau

This set of travel posters envision a day when the creativity of scientists and engineers will allow us to do things we can only dream of now.
More

Strange New Worlds

Explore an interactive gallery of some of the most intriguing and exotic planets discovered so far.
More
A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.

Historic Timeline

A planetary tour through time. The ancients debated the existence of planets beyond our own; now we know of thousands.
More