K2-279 b: An Earth-Like World Around a Quiet Star

K2-279 is a star located 597 light-years away, and it hosts exactly one known planet. The star itself has a reported mass of 0.945 solar masses and a radius of 0.894 solar radii - both slightly smaller than the Sun's corresponding values. Its temperature of 5430 K is cooler than the Sun's. These stellar measurements describe K2-279 alone, not the wider system.

The single planet, K2-279 b, was discovered by the transit method and announced in 2018. During a transit, a planet crosses in front of its star as seen from Earth, producing a small, repeated dip in brightness that helps establish the planet's orbital period. K2-279 b orbits its star every 7.12 days. Its radius is 1.21 Earth radii, making it larger than Earth and placing it within the Earth-like size class, which covers planets up to 1.5 times Earth's radius. Size classifications reflect radius, not composition, so this label describes only how the planet's size compares with Earth's.