K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb

K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb is a distant exoplanet discovered by the Kepler space telescope. Its distance is estimated at from the Earth, being discovered on January 4, 2022, thanks to an effect of gravitational microlensing from a series of data recorded in 2016, then revealed on March 31, 2022.

Star

K2-2016-BLG-0005Lb orbits a dwarf star less massive than the Sun, named K2-2016-BLG-0005L. Its mass is estimated at 0.584 ± 0.03 solar masses.

Characteristics

The exoplanet is almost an exact twin of Jupiter. It is of similar mass and orbits at almost the same orbital distance. The power of the gravitational lens allowed the team to determine that the exoplanet is about 1.1 Jovian mass, and was a projected at a distance of 4.2 astronomical units from its star at the time of observation, the average orbital distance of Jupiter being 5.2 astronomical units.