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Entering orbit…
Habitability
7/ 100
Uninhabitable
Kepler-26 b rendered in TerraForge from its measured mass, orbit and star

Kepler-26 b

Also written Kepler-26b, Kepler 26b, Kepler 26 b

Sub-Neptune1092 light years awayFound 2011
Mass
5.12 × Earth
Radius
2.78 × Earth
Gravity
0.66 g
Surface (est.)
524 K
Year
12.3 days
From Earth
1,093 ly
Mass
5.12 × Earth
Radius
2.78 × Earth
Gravity
0.66 g
Surface (est.)
524 K
Year
12.3 days
From Earth
1,093 ly

Kepler-26 system

Type
K-type (Orange)
Spectral type
M0 V
Temperature
3,914 K
Radius
0.512 ☉
Mass
0.544 ☉
Planets
4
Luminosity
0.0870 ☉

Published by the NASA Exoplanet Archive. This world’s temperature and habitability score are computed from this star’s measured luminosity, not from a stand-in for its class.

Kepler-26 d0.039 AU1.2 M⊕
Kepler-26 b0.086 AUYou are here5.1 M⊕
Kepler-26 c0.11 AU6.2 M⊕
Kepler-26 e0.22 AU6.4 M⊕
Habitable zone

Star and planets drawn to scale: the star is 20 times as wide as Kepler-26 b, so only its edge is in view. Orbits spaced as in the star system view.

Kepler-26 b, from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (found 2011). Measured: 5.12 Earth masses, 0.0855 AU, a 3914 K K-type star. Composition inferred from a measured bulk density of 0.24x Earth's, too low for bare rock at this size, suggesting a rocky core under roughly a 7% hydrogen/helium envelope by mass, with a day locked to its 12.3-day year, as anything orbiting this close would be.

Surface. No solid surface - a hydrogen-helium envelope wrapped around a rocky core (a sub-Neptune)

Sub-Neptune
Life unlikely — too hot for liquid waterLow Activity
Kepler-26 b is a sub-Neptune: a 5.1x Earth core wrapped in a deep hydrogen-helium envelope, with no solid surface to stand on.
Sub-Neptunes are the most common planets Kepler found, though our own solar system has none. Too light to be a giant, they still hold on to a thick envelope of light gas over a rocky or icy core.
Classification Criteria:
✓ Mass: 5.1x Earth (under 20x, below the giants)✓ A hydrogen-helium envelope over the core

Reading Kepler-26 b’s atmosphere

Dominant elements: O, Si, Fe, N, C, HThis is what a telescope would measure while Kepler-26 b crosses in front of its star: starlight passes through the atmosphere and spreads into a rainbow band. Each dark line marks a wavelength the atmosphere absorbed.Every element absorbs its own signature wavelengths — hydrogen always darkens the same two spots, calcium another pair, and so on. Astronomers match the lines in a real spectrum against a library of these signatures to say what an atmosphere is made of, light-years away, without ever visiting. A deeper line generally means more of that element is present.Kepler-26 b sits about 1093 light-years away, found by the transit method. Most catalogued distances trace back to parallax: as Earth orbits the Sun, a nearby star appears to shift very slightly against the distant background stars, and the size of that shift gives its distance directly.
Further reading
ExoplanetsSara Seager (editor)The field's standard reference: how planets are found, how they form, and what their atmospheres are made of.The Planet FactoryElizabeth TaskerHow planets are made, and why so few of them come out like Earth.Exoplanets: Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar PlanetsMichael Summers & James TrefilThe strange end of the catalogue — carbon worlds, molten rock, planets orbiting dead stars.The Little Book of ExoplanetsJoshua WinnHow these worlds are found, and what a measurement can honestly tell us.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases — if you buy through these links, TerraForge may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Habitability ScoreUninhabitable
7
Contributing Factors
temperature8
Extremely hot - hostile to known life forms
atmosphere18

Deep hydrogen-helium envelope with photochemical haze

Hydrogen-rich atmosphere typical of gas giants (partially stripped by slow rotation)
water15
No solid surface — any water is locked in a supercritical mantle and hot ice, not oceans
magnetic Field30
No magnetic field - vulnerable to solar radiation
geology60
Some geological activity provides slow nutrient cycling
Organic Chemistry80
Core organic elements (CHNO) present
rotation30
Very slow rotation - days and nights each last several Earth days, bringing extreme temperature swings

Physical Properties

Mass
5.12x Earth (3.06e+25 kg)
Radius
1.72x Earth (10,981 km)
This planet: 1.72× Earth radiusEarth: 1× (baseline)
Surface Gravity
1.72x Earth (16.9 m/s²)
Surface Temperature
524 K (251 °C / 483 °F)
Rotation Period
295.2 hours/day (slower than Earth)
This planet: 295 h/dayEarth: 24 h/day

Elemental Composition

A dark ringed planet hanging over the horizon of a rocky moon, its rings lit by a distant sun

New: Stand on Your Moons 🌒

A planet's surface view isn't the only ground any more. Press the surface button on a planet with moons and it asks where to stand: the planet itself, or any moon still in orbit, each tagged with what it became — ocean, ice, carbon, volcanic. Every moon gets its own ground and sky from its own physics: airless rock under a black sky, ice cracked by geysers over a hidden sea, sulfur plains shaking with eruptions, or orange haze you can't see the sun through. And hanging over the horizon, there's the planet you built.

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