Question

Kepler 1606b is an exoplanet: a planet orbiting a star different than our own. Named for the star it orbits (Kepler 1606, a star about 3000 light-years away), it was discovered in the year 2016 by the Kepler space telescope.

Kepler 1606b orbits its star a little bit closer than the Earth's orbit to the Sun, at a distance of 0.64⋅?????ℎ, where ?????ℎ=1.50×1011 m is the radius of Earth's orbit. The star Kepler 1606 is bit cooler than our Sun, with a temperature of 5422 K, and is a bit smaller than our Sun, with a radius of 0.86⋅????, where ????=7.00×108 m is the radius of the Sun.

Note: If Kepler 1606b has no atmosphere and an albedo similar to the Earth's (albedo of 0.3), the equilibrium average temperature of the planet is 4.6 oC.

(a) If we include a thin atmosphere for the planet Kepler 1606b, with an atmospheric emissivity of ?=1, what would the surface temperature of the planet be? Give your answer in ∘C.

(b) What is the equilibrium temperature of the thin atmosphere? Give your answer in ∘C.

Answer 1