Kepler's first rocky planet: Kepler-10b

NASA's Kepler Mission uses transit photometry to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. The mission reached a milestone toward meeting that goal: the discovery of its first rocky planet, Kepler-10b. Two distinct sets of transit events were detected: (1) a 152 ± 4 ppm dimming lasting 1.811 ± 0.024 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454964.57375⁺⁰'⁰⁰⁰⁶⁰ ₋₀.₀₀₀₈₂ + N0.837495⁺⁰'⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁴ ₋₀.₀₀₀₀₀₅ days and (2) a 376 ± 9 ppm dimming lasting 6.86 ± 0.07 hr with ephemeris T [BJD] =2454971.6761⁺⁰'⁰⁰²⁰ ₋₀.₀₀₂₃ + N45.29485⁺⁰'⁰⁰⁰⁶⁵ ₋₀.₀₀₀₇₆ days. Statistical tests on the photometric and pixel flux time series established the viability of the planet candidates triggering ground-based follow-up observations. Forty precision Doppler measurements were used to confirm that the short-period transit event is due to a planetary companion. The parent star is bright enough for asteroseismic analysis. Photometry was collected at 1 minute cadence for >4 months from which we detected 19 distinct pulsation frequencies. Modeling the frequencies resulted in precise knowledge of the fundamental stellar properties. Kepler-10 is a relatively old (11.9 ± 4.5 Gyr) but otherwise Sun-like main-sequence star with T eff = 5627 ± 44 K, M ⋆ = 0.895 ± 0.060 M ⊙, and R ⋆ = 1.056 ± 0.021 R ⊙. Physical models simultaneously fit to the transit light curves and the precision Doppler measurements yielded tight constraints on the properties of Kepler-10b that speak to its rocky composition: M P = 4.56⁺¹'¹⁷ ₋₁.₂₉ M ⊕, R P = 1.416⁺⁰'⁰³³ ₋₀.₀₃₆ R ⊕, and ρP = 8.8⁺²'¹ ₋₂.₉ g cm⁻³. Kepler-10b is the smallest transiting exoplanet discovered to date.

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An edited version of this article was published by the Institute of Physics on behalf of the American Astronomical Society. Copyright 2011 the American Astronomical Society.
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Author Batalha, N.
Borucki, W.
Bryson, S.
Buchhave, L.
Caldwell, D.
Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen
Ciardi, D.
Dunham, E.
Fressin, F.
Gautier, T.
Gilliland, R.
Haas, M.
Howell, S.
Jenkins, J.
Kjeldsen, H.
Koch, D.
Latham, D.
Lissauer, J.
Marcy, G.
Rowe, J.
Sasselov, D.
Seager, S.
Steffen, J.
Torres, G.
Basri, G.
Brown, T.
Charbonneau, D.
Christiansen, J.
Clarke, B.
Cochran, W.
Dupree, A.
Fabrycky, D.
Fischer, D.
Ford, E.
Fortney, J.
Girouard, F.
Holman, M.
Johnson, J.
Isaacson, H.
Klaus, T.
Machalek, P.
Moorehead, A.
Morehead, R.
Ragozzine, D.
Tenenbaum, P.
Twicken, J.
Quinn, S.
VanCleve, J.
Walkowicz, L.
Welsh, W.
DeVore, E.
Gould, A.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2011-03-01T00:00:00
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2025-07-17T14:49:07.593729
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:18167
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Batalha, N., Borucki, W., Bryson, S., Buchhave, L., Caldwell, D., Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen, Ciardi, D., Dunham, E., Fressin, F., Gautier, T., Gilliland, R., Haas, M., Howell, S., Jenkins, J., Kjeldsen, H., Koch, D., Latham, D., Lissauer, J., Marcy, G., Rowe, J., Sasselov, D., Seager, S., Steffen, J., Torres, G., Basri, G., Brown, T., Charbonneau, D., Christiansen, J., Clarke, B., Cochran, W., Dupree, A., Fabrycky, D., Fischer, D., Ford, E., Fortney, J., Girouard, F., Holman, M., Johnson, J., Isaacson, H., Klaus, T., Machalek, P., Moorehead, A., Morehead, R., Ragozzine, D., Tenenbaum, P., Twicken, J., Quinn, S., VanCleve, J., Walkowicz, L., Welsh, W., DeVore, E., Gould, A.. (2011). Kepler's first rocky planet: Kepler-10b. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7x3501w. Accessed 09 November 2025.

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