Kepler-10, the star that hosts Kepler-10b, is located 560
light-years from the Solar System in the
Draco constellation. It is approximately the same size as the
Sun, with an estimated age of 12 billion years. for Kepler-10b, demonstrating the dimming effect as it
transits its star The transit method of discovering
exoplanets relies upon carefully monitoring the brightness of a star. If a planet is present and crosses the line of sight between Earth and the star, the star will dim at a regular interval by an amount that depends upon the radius of the transiting planet. In order to measure the mass of a planet, and rule out other phenomena that can mimic the presence of a planet transiting a star, candidate transiting planets are followed up with the
radial velocity method of detecting extrasolar planets.
Reaction Kepler-10b's discovery excited astronomers, who hoped to use data about it to inquire into the formation and structure that terrestrial, Earth-size planets tend to have in common.
Geoff Marcy of the
University of California at
Berkeley said that the discovery was ranked "as among the most profound scientific discoveries in human history," and that the planet "will go into every textbook worldwide." Marcy also described Kepler-10b as "a bridge between the gas giant planets we've been finding and the Earth itself." ==Characteristics==