Super-Earths tagged posts

New Class of Habitable Exoplanets represent a big step forward in the Search for Life

A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate the search for life outside our Solar System.

In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature and atmospheric composition to Earth. However, astronomers from the University of Cambridge believe there are more promising possibilities out there.

The researchers have identified a new class of habitable planets, dubbed ‘Hycean’ planets—hot, ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres—which are more numerous and observable than Earth-like planets.

The researchers say the results, reported in The Astrophysical Journal, could mean that finding biosignatures o...

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Could Mini-Neptunes be Irradiated Ocean Planets?

Mini-Neptune

New research suggests that the low density of mini-Neptunes could be explained simply by the presence of a thick layer of water. Many exoplanets known today are ‘super-Earths’, with a radius 1.3 times that of Earth, and ‘mini-Neptunes’, with 2.4 Earth radii. Mini-Neptunes, which are less dense, were long thought to be gas planets, made up of hydrogen and helium.

Now, scientists at the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (CNRS/Aix-Marseille Université/Cnes)(1) have examined a new possibility, namely that the low density of mini-Neptunes could be explained simply by the presence of a thick layer of water that experiences an intense greenhouse effect caused by the irradiation from their host star.

These findings, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Let...

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Gravitational forces in Protoplanetary Disks may push Super-Earths close to their Stars

An artist’s concept of super-Earth planet 55 Cancri e, which races around its host star once every 18 hours. New research led by Penn State astronomers improves our understanding of how large super-Earth planets with small, quick orbits form. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
An artist’s concept of super-Earth planet 55 Cancri e, which races around its host star once every 18 hours. New research led by Penn State astronomers improves our understanding of how large super-Earth planets with small, quick orbits form. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers found that as planets form out of the chaotic churn of gravitational, hydrodynamic – or, drag – and magnetic forces and collisions within the dusty, gaseous protoplanetary disk that surrounds a star as a planetary system starts to form, the orbits of these planets eventually get in sync, causing them to slide – follow the leader7-style – toward the star.

The galaxy is littered with planetary systems vastly different from ours...

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The Case of the Over-Tilting Exoplanets

Yale researchers have discovered a surprising link between the tilting of exoplanets and their orbit in space. The discovery may help explain a long-standing puzzle about exoplanetary orbital architectures.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Sarah Millholland

For almost a decade, astronomers have tried to explain why so many pairs of planets outside our solar system have an odd configuration – their orbits seem to have been pushed apart by a powerful unknown mechanism. Yale researchers say they’ve found a possible answer, and it implies that the planets’ poles are majorly tilted.

The finding could have a big impact on how researchers estimate the structure, climate, and habitability of exoplanets as they try to identify planets that are similar to Earth...

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