Kepler-62

Star

Kepler-62 — an orange K-type dwarf about 70% the Sun's mass and cooler, ~980 light-years away in Lyra. Milder and longer-lived than the Sun, it hosts five planets, two of them super-Earths in its habitable zone.

Open in 3D viewSee Kepler-62 in the live, interactive 3D map

Key facts

Mass

1.37 × 10³⁰ kg

0.69 M☉

Radius

445,248 km

64% of the Sun's radius

Science

Physical

Mass: 1.37 × 10³⁰ kg · 0.69 M☉
Radius: 445,248 km · 64% of the Sun's radius
Density: 3,712 kg/m³ · 3.7× water; Computed from mass and radius

Motion through space

Proper motion: 0.04 arcseconds per year · its drift across our sky; SIMBAD — 2020yCat.1350....0G, 2020AJ....160..120J
Radial velocity: +16.9 km/s · moving away from the Sun; SIMBAD — 2020yCat.1350....0G, 2020AJ....160..120J
Speed across our line of sight: 57.1 km/s; Computed from proper motion and parallax
Speed through space, relative to the Sun: 59.5 km/s; Computed from proper motion, parallax and radial velocity

Radiation & temperature

Luminosity: 8.31 × 10²⁵ W · 0.217 L☉

Discovery & history

Method: Telescope
Name: A Kepler-mission catalogue designation; no proper name.

Confirmed as a five-planet host by NASA's Kepler telescope in 2013; its two habitable-zone super-Earths made it an early landmark in the search for temperate worlds.

Images

NASA's comparison of Kepler's small habitable-zone planets — including Kepler-186 f and Kepler-442 b — with the Solar System (a NASA diagram). — NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech (public domain) · Wikimedia Commons

Where to find it — in Lyra, the Lyre (IAU constellation chart). To the eye it is a single point of light; no telescope has imaged its surface. — IAU / Sky & Telescope, R. Sinnott & R. Fienberg (CC BY 3.0) · Wikimedia Commons

Images from open archives · credit shown per image