"Kepler-10b orbits one of the 150,000 stars that the spacecraft is monitoring between the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra. The star itself is very similar to our own sun in temperature, mass and size, but older with an age of over 8 billion years, compared to the 4-and-1/2 billion years of our own sun. Planet Kepler-10b is orbiting its star about 20 times closer than Mercury is to our own Sun. It takes less than one Earth day to orbit its star. It is the smallest exoplanet (a planet located outside our solar system) discovered to date."

View larger image: Planet Kepler-10b in orbit »

Read more: Kepler finds unlikely pair of planets orbiting distant star »