Kepler-90h
Kepler-90h
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Kepler-90h

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Kepler-90h

Kepler-90h (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-351.01) is an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the early G-type main sequence star Kepler-90, the outermost of eight such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 2,840 light-years (870 parsecs), from Earth in the constellation Draco. The exoplanet was found by using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured.

Kepler-90h is a gas giant with no solid surface. Its equilibrium temperature is 292 K (19 °C; 66 °F). It is around 0.64 times as massive and around 1.01 times as large as Jupiter. This makes it very similar to Jupiter, in terms of mass and radius.

Kepler-90h orbits its host star about every 331.6 days at a distance of 1.01 astronomical units, very similar to Earth's orbital distance from the Sun (which is 1 AU).

Kepler-90h resides in the circumstellar habitable zone of the parent star. The exoplanet, with a radius of 1.01 RJ, is too large to be rocky, and because of this the planet itself may not be habitable. Hypothetically, large enough moons, with a sufficient atmosphere and pressure, may be able to support liquid water and potentially life.

For a stable orbit the ratio between the moon's orbital period Ps around its primary and that of the primary around its star Pp must be < 1/9, e.g. if a planet takes 90 days to orbit its star, the maximum stable orbit for a moon of that planet is less than 10 days. Simulations suggest that a moon with an orbital period less than about 45 to 60 days will remain safely bound to a massive giant planet or brown dwarf that orbits 1 AU from a Sun-like star. In the case of Kepler-90h, this would be practically the same to have a stable orbit.

Tidal effects could also allow the moon to sustain plate tectonics, which would cause volcanic activity to regulate the moon's temperature and create a geodynamo effect which would give the satellite a strong magnetic field.

To support an Earth-like atmosphere for about 4.6 billion years (the age of the Earth), the moon would have to have a Mars-like density and at least a mass of 0.07 M🜨. One way to decrease loss from sputtering is for the moon to have a strong magnetic field that can deflect stellar wind and radiation belts. NASA's Galileo's measurements hints large moons can have magnetic fields; it found that Jupiter's moon Ganymede has its own magnetosphere, even though its mass is only 0.025 M🜨.

The planet orbits a F-type star named Kepler-90, its host star. The star is 1.2 times as massive as the Sun and is 1.2 times as large as the Sun. It is estimated to be 2 billion years old, with a surface temperature of 6080 K. In comparison, the Sun is about 4.6 billion years old and has a surface temperature of 5778 K.

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