An Illustration of a compact, multi-planet system. Researchers have found that such systems are more likely to form around stars with lower amounts of heavy elements than our own Sun.
Credit: Michael S. Helfenbein/Yale University
Researchers at Yale and the Flatiron Institute have discovered that compact, multiple-planet systems are more likely to form around stars that have lower amounts of heavy elements than our own Sun. This runs counter to a good deal of current research, which has focused on stars with higher metallicity.
The research team looked at 700 stars and their surrounding planets for the study, which appears in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The researchers considered any element heavier than helium – including iron, silicon, magnesium, and carbon – as a heavy metal...
Read More
Recent Comments