Kepler-62f

Kepler-62f (also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-701.04) is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the orange dwarf star Kepler-62, the outermost of five such planets discovered around the star by NASA's Kepler space telescope. It is located about 982 light-years (301 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation of Lyra. Kepler-62f orbits its parent star at a distance of 0.718 AU (107,400,000 km; 66,700,000 mi) from its host star with an orbital period of roughly 267 days, and has a radius of around 1.41 times that of Earth. It is one of the more promising candidates for potential habitability, as its parent star is a relatively quiet star, and has less mass than the Sun – thus it can live up to a span of about 30 billion years or so. Based on its size, Kepler-62f is likely a terrestrial or ocean-covered planet. However, key components of the exoplanet still need to be assessed to determine habitability; such as its atmosphere if one exists, since it lies within the outer part of its host star's habitable zone. The discovery of the exoplanet–along with Kepler-62e–was announced in April 2013 by NASA as part of the Kepler space telescope data release. 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. According to scientists, it is a potential candidate to search for extraterrestrial life, and was chosen as one of the targets to study by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program.