Kepler-80
Red dwarf with six planets in a compact, resonant system.
Kepler-80, also designated KOI-500, is an M0V red dwarf star located roughly 1,223 light years away in the constellation Cygnus. It was the first star identified with five orbiting planets, and its system now contains six known exoplanets, the outermost of which was discovered through artificial intelligence analysis of Kepler space telescope data.
Quick Facts
- Spectral type
- M0V
- Distance from solar system
- 1,223 light years
- Constellation
- Cygnus
- Number of known exoplanets
- 6
Facts from the source article.
Planetary system
The six exoplanets of Kepler-80 were detected by the Kepler Space Telescope using the transit method, which measures the dimming of starlight as a planet passes in front of its star. The five innermost planets were confirmed through follow-up investigations: Kepler-80b and Kepler-80c were confirmed in 2013 via transit-timing variation; Kepler-80d and Kepler-80e were validated in 2014 through statistical analysis; and Kepler-80f was confirmed in 2016. All six planets orbit within 0.2 AU of the star, a region smaller than Mercury's orbit, making Kepler-80 a compact system classified as a System with Tightly-packed Inner Planets. Dynamical simulations from 2014 suggest the system underwent substantial inward migration, producing a pattern of lower-mass planets on the tightest orbits.
Orbital resonance
The Kepler-80 system exhibits three-body mean-motion orbital resonances among groups of its planets: between d, e, and b; between e, b, and c; and between b, c, and g. No two-body resonances have been found. The orbital periods of d, e, b, c, and g follow a ratio of approximately 1.000:1.512:2.296:3.100:4.767, which reduces to 4:6:9:12:18 in a rotating reference frame. Conjunctions occur at relative intervals of 2:3:6:6 in a pattern repeating every 191 days, and modeling indicates the resonant system is stable to perturbations.
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