Orbit of Kepler-10b exoplanet round its star, artwork. The discovery of this rocky planet was announced on 10 January 2011. It was found by NASA's Kep

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Orbit of Kepler-10b exoplanet round its star, artwork. The discovery of this rocky planet was announced on 10 January 2011. It was found by NASA's Kepler Mission, a space observatory launched in 2009 and scanning tens of thousands of stars in the Milky Way to discover Earth-like planets. Kepler-10b is the smallest rocky planet found so far outside the solar system. It has a diameter times that of Earth, but orbits close to its parent star, making it more like Mercury. The parent star seen here, Kepler-10, is similar to our Sun but older. It is 560 light years away, in the constellation of Draco.

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Size: 3977px × 2238px
Photo credit: © NASA/KEPLER MISSION/DANA BERRY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 10b, 2011, alien, artwork, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, draco, exoplanet, extrasolar, illustration, kepler, kepler-10, kepler-10b, mission, nasa, orbit, orbiting, planet, planetary, rocky, science, space, star, transit, transiting, universe