ASK Space

EXOPLANETS

What do we know about Kepler-452b’s surface?

We know very little about what the planet is like. We know that the star is essentially the same temperature as the Sun, about 5,500 degrees Celsius (9,900 degrees Fahrenheit), and is just a little bit bigger than the Sun. Its estimated age is 6 billion years old, so it’s about 2 billion years older than our own star. We know that this planet is about five per cent farther from its star than our planet is from the Sun. That’s what makes it very interesting: it’s the closest analogue we have to the Sun-Earth system outside our own Solar System.

In terms of the surface of the planet, we don’t have a mass measurement, so all we have to go on to understand whether this planet is likely to be rocky or not is to look at the populations of other exoplanets we have found. It’s kind of like looking at a classroom of children and measuring their heights and their weights, then the next day Sally comes