Identification

Title

Kepler's first rocky planet: Kepler-10b

Abstract

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 + N*0.837495⁺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 + N*45.29485⁺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.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7x3501w

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

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Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

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date type

publication

effective date

2011-03-01T00:00:00Z

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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.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T14:49:07.593729

Metadata language

eng; USA