Kepler-8b

The Kepler-8b planet is named because it was the first planet discovered in the orbit of Kepler-8. The star itself (and by extension, its planet) was named after the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA-run satellite that searches for terrestrial planets between constellations Cygnus and Lyra that transit, or cross in front of, their host stars with respect to Earth. This crossing slightly dims the star at a regular interval, which is used to determine if the cause of the fluctuation in brightness is indeed due to a planetary transit. The planet was first noted as a potential transit event by the Kepler telescope, and was originally designated as KOI 10.01. Follow-up observations by the High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer at Hawaii's W.M. Keck Observatory yielded additional information about the planet, including its mass and radius. Kepler-8b was the fifth planet discovered by the Kepler telescope. The first three planets in Kepler's field of view had already been confirmed, and were used to test Kepler's accuracy. Kepler-8b was the last of the first five planets that Kepler discovered. Its discovery, along with the planets Kepler-4b, Kepler-5b, Kepler-6b, and Kepler-7b, were announced to the public at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C. This conference took place on January 4, 2010. The discovery of these first five planets helped confirm Kepler's functionality. ==Host star==