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Related Concept Videos

Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion01:29

Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. His first law states that all planets orbit the Sun in an elliptical orbit, with the Sun at one of the ellipse's foci. Therefore, the distance of a planet from the Sun varies throughout its revolution around the Sun.
While in an elliptical orbit, the total energy of the planet is conserved. Therefore, the planet slows down when it is at apogee and...
Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion01:18

Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. In 1909, he formulated his first two laws based on the observations of his forebears, Nikolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. However, in 1918, he published his third law of planetary motion, which gives a precise mathematical relationship between a planet's average distance from the Sun and the amount of time it takes to revolve around the Sun. It...
Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion01:10

Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion

In the early 17th century, German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler postulated three laws for the motion of planets in the solar system. He formulated his first two laws based on the observations of his forebears, Nikolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe.
Polish astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus put forth a theory that stated a heliocentric model for the solar system. According to this heliocentric theory, all the planets, including Earth, orbit the Sun in circular orbits.
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Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon01:21

Schwarzschild Radius and Event Horizon

No object with a finite mass can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. This fact has an interesting consequence in the domain of extremely high gravitational fields.
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Subatomic Particles03:37

Subatomic Particles

Dalton was only partially correct about the particles that make up matter. All matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are composed of three smaller subatomic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. These three particles account for the mass and the charge of an atom.
Acceleration due to Gravity on Other Planets01:24

Acceleration due to Gravity on Other Planets

The gravitational acceleration of an object near the Earth's surface is called the acceleration due to gravity. It can be measured by conducting simple experiments on Earth. However, such an experiment is impossible to conduct on the surface of other planets.
Astronomical observations are thus used to measure the acceleration due to gravity on other planets. This can be determined by observing the effect of a planet's gravity on objects close to it. The crucial factor that helps in this...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 14, 2026

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves
06:48

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves

Published on: May 10, 2020

A sub-Mercury-sized exoplanet.

Thomas Barclay1, Jason F Rowe, Jack J Lissauer

  • 1NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA. thomas.barclay@nasa.gov

Nature
|February 22, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Astronomers discovered Kepler-37b, the smallest exoplanet yet found, significantly smaller than Mercury. This tiny, likely rocky world orbits a Sun-like star, offering new insights into planetary system diversity.

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Last Updated: May 14, 2026

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves
06:48

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves

Published on: May 10, 2020

Bringing the Visible Universe into Focus with Robo-AO
10:35

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Published on: February 12, 2013

Simulation of the Planetary Interior Differentiation Processes in the Laboratory
06:04

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Area of Science:

  • Exoplanetary science
  • Comparative planetology

Background:

  • Exoplanet discoveries reveal diverse planetary systems unlike our own.
  • Recent advancements allow detection of Earth-sized and smaller exoplanets.
  • Previously, no exoplanets smaller than those in our Solar System had been identified.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To report the discovery of an exoplanet significantly smaller than Mercury.
  • To characterize the smallest exoplanet found to date and its host star.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing transit photometry data from the Kepler Space Telescope.
  • Analyzing light curve variations to determine planetary size and orbital parameters.

Main Results:

  • Discovery of Kepler-37b, an exoplanet smaller than Mercury and comparable in size to the Moon.
  • Kepler-37b is the innermost of three planets orbiting the Sun-like star Kepler-37.
  • The planet's small size and proximity to its star suggest a likely rocky composition with no atmosphere or water.

Conclusions:

  • Kepler-37b represents a new lower limit for detected exoplanet sizes.
  • The discovery highlights the vast diversity of planetary bodies in other star systems.
  • Further study of such small exoplanets is crucial for understanding planet formation and evolution.