Kepler-150 f: Astronomers discover Neptune-sized planet 3,000 light years away from Earth

A lost planet called Kepler-150 f, which is about the size of Neptune, has been discovered by the scientists in a solar system. The planet is located 3,000 light years from Earth.

According to researchers at the Yale University in the US, the Kepler-150 f was overlooked for many years. Most such “exoplanets”, which are planets located outside our solar system are usually identified by Computer algorithms.

The algorithms scan through data from space mission surveys, and look for the telltale transits of planets orbiting in front of distant stars.
Sometimes, however, the computers miss out something and in this case it was a planet in the Kepler-150 system with a long orbit around its sun.

Kepler-150 f takes 637 days to circle its sun, one of the longest orbits for any known system with five or more planets. The Kepler Mission found four other planets in the Kepler-150 system - Kepler-150 b, c, d, and e - several years ago. All of them have orbits much closer to their sun than the new planet does.

“Only by using our new technique of modeling and subtracting out the transit signals of known planets could we then actually see it for what it really was,” said Joseph Schmitt, graduate student at Yale.

“Essentially, it was hiding in plain sight in a forest of other planetary transits,” said Schmitt.

The study was published in The Astronomical Journal. 

(With inputs from PTI)