UNLV Astrophysicist Helps Expand NASA’s “Ultimate” Catalog of Planets

Asystem of seven sweltering planets has been revealed by continued study of data from NASA’s retired Kepler space telescope: each one is bathed in more radiant heat from their host star per area than any planet in our solar system. Also unlike any of our immediate neighbors, all seven planets in this system, named Kepler-385, are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. The ability to describe the properties of the Kepler-385 system in such detail is testament to the quality of this latest catalog of exoplanets, or planets orbiting distant stars. "Now that we've had some time to mull over the data, we've been able to improve our estimates for some of the properties of the planets in these different systems, like their orbital periods and sizes,” said Jason Steffen, a professor of astrophysics at UNLV and an author on the paper. "It's the ultimate catalog of the planets from the Kepler mission." Kepler-385 is one of only a few planetary systems known to contain more than six verified planets or planet candidates. The system is among the highlights of a new Kepler catalog that contains almost 4,400 planet candidates, including more than 700 multi-planet systems. https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/new-seven-planet-system-helps-expand-nasas-ultimate-catalog-planets