Welcome the new “King” of Kepler-88 planetary system- the ‘Kepler-88 d’! ‘Kepler-88 d’, which is a newly discovered exoplanet in the Kepler-88 planet system, has dethroned ‘Kepler-88 c’ as the largest planet in the aforementioned planetary system. For a better understanding of the enormity of the ‘Kepler-88 d’, it has been measured three times larger than Jupiter which is regarded as the king of our solar system. Jupiter is 300 times bigger than Earth. The Kepler-88 planetary system also has ‘Kepler-88 b’, as per media reports.
The discovery was made by a group of astronomers led by the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA). The new plant was discovered after studying six years of data. The data was collected at W. M. Keck Observatory located on Maunakea in Hawaii. The astronomers used the 10-meter Keck I telescope equipped with the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) instrument, the media reports said. It must be noted that naming of Kepler-88 b, c, and d have been done alphabetically in the order of their discovery.
The massive exoplanet ‘Kepler-88 d’ is located at just over 1,250 light-years from Earth. A light-year is used to measures distance in space. One light-year equals around 6 trillion miles. While Kepler 88-b is smaller than Neptune, Kepler 88-c is comparable in size to Jupiter. Both ‘Kepler 88-b’ and ‘Kepler 88-c’ orbit the star in 11 and 22 days respectively.
The discovery of Kepler 88-d is likely to increase astronomers’ understanding of the star system. Massive planets tend to influence their respective solar systems. In the past, massive planets have been found to “promote the development of rocky planets and directed water-bearing comets toward them,” the researchers said, as per media reports.