An artist’s conception shows Kepler-36c as it might look from the surface of neighboring Kepler-36b. Credits: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/David Aguilar.
1,530 light years away in constellation Cygnus, Kepler-36 is a sun-like star orbited by 2 known alien worlds. The inner planet, Kepler-36b is a so-called “super-Earth,” ie larger than our home planet but smaller than Neptune; the larger Kepler-36c, resembling the solar system’s outermost planet, is described as a “mini-Neptune.” What is unusual about this planetary system is that these 2 exoworlds have very close orbits, separated only by 0.013 astronomical units (AU)—5X the Earth-moon distance...
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