In a severe departure from what astronomers once believed in planetary systems, the researchers have discovered that planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune are surprisingly common in the distance of the alien solar system.
New research has been published In Journal Science On April 24th, these “super earths” frequently orbit the stars at distances comparable to Jupiter’s position in our own solar system. This is a discovery that challenges longstanding assumptions about the planetary layer.
“We found ‘Super Earth’. This means that it is bigger than our home planet, but smaller than Neptune – where only planets were discovered hundreds or hundreds of times larger than Earth’s “Harvard & Smithsonian (CFA) and the leading author of the paper.
International researchers have identified the size of the Earth, about twice the size of the Earth orbiting a star that is farther than Saturn’s position in our solar system. This finding comes from the largest microlens study of this species, analyzing about three times the planets in previous samples and includes about eight times the planets found in previous microlens surveys.
Microlenses are generated when light from distant stars is amplified by intervening bodies such as planets. This technique is excellent at detecting planets at a considerable distance from the host star, comparable to the area between Earth and Saturn’s orbit.
Researchers used data from the Korean Microlens Telescope Network (KMTNET), which consists of three telescopes strategically located in Chile, South Africa and Australia. This global arrangement allows for continuous monitoring of the night sky.
“This measurement of a group of planets from a slightly larger planet than Earth is beyond Jupiter’s size. It shows that planets in orbit outside Earth’s orbit, especially the hyper-Earth, are abundant in galaxies.”
Our solar system is characterized by a relatively clean arrangement. Four small rocky planets near the sun, followed by four large gaseous planets in the outer system. Previous exoplanetary studies using transport and radial bone velocity methods have already demonstrated that many systems contain different planetary sizes in orbits closer to orbit than Earth. This new study extends its understanding to the outer regions of the planetary system.
“The results suggest that in orbits like Jupiter, most planetary systems may not reflect our solar system,” explained Young Kill John, co-author of the Korean Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences.
The findings also show that at least these distant orbits contain as many super-Earth planets as Neptune-sized planets, providing important data on the distribution of planets.
“Current data provided hints on how cold planets form,” said Professor Pseudo Mao at Tinshua University and Westlake University in China. “In the coming years, our samples will be four times larger, which will constrain how these planets will form and evolve even more rigorously using KMTNET data.”
As astronomers continue to expand their catalogues of exoplanets, evidence increasingly suggests that our solar system arrangement could be a more exceptional than the rules. This is a humble reminder that the architecture of planetary systems across the galaxy follows a diverse path of evolution.
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