This picture shows every Kepler planetary candidate and its transiting companion in silhouette. The sizes of the stars and transiting companions are properly scaled. The colours of the stars are meant to represent how the eye would see the star outside of the Earths atmosphere. Stars have been properly limb darkened and the companions have been offset to match the modeled impact parameter. Some stars will even show more than one planet!
The largest star is 6.1 times larger that the Sun and the smallest stars are estimated to be only
0.3 times the radius of the Sun. The Sun is shown below the top row on the right by itself with the Earth and Jupiter in transit
Don't forget to check out the high-resolution version, which is necessary to see some of the smallest planetary candidates.
Hi-res: Link
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
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