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Analysis finds evidence for many exoplanets made of water and rock around small stars


A new study suggests that many planets may have larger amounts of water than previously thought – as much as half water and half rock. The chase? All that water could be embedded in rocks, rather than flowing like oceans or rivers on the surface.

A new study suggests that many other planets may have large amounts of country than one would think – as much as half water and half stone. The chase? All that water could be embedded in rocks, rather than flowing like oceans or rivers on the surface.

A new study suggests that many planets may have larger amounts of water than previously thought – as much as half water and half rock. The chase? All that water could be embedded in rocks, rather than flowing like oceans or rivers on the surface.

Rafael Luque, first author of the new paper and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, said: “It was surprising to see evidence for so many water worlds orbiting the most common type of star in the universe. Galaxy. “It has enormous consequences for the search for habitable planets.”

Thanks better telescope Scientists are finding signs of more and more planets in distant solar systems. Larger sample sizes help scientists identify demographic patterns – similar to how looking at the population of an entire town can reveal trends that are barely noticeable at the individual level.

Luque, along with co-author Enric Palle of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna, decided to look at population levels for a group of planets seen around a certain type of planet. star called an M dwarf. Hey stars is the most popular stars we see around we in the galaxy, and scientists have cataloged dozens of planets around them to date.

But because the stars are so much brighter than their planets, we can’t see the actual planets. Instead, the scientists detected faint signs of the planets’ effects on their stars – the shadow created when a planet passes in front of its star, or the tug of war. small about the motion of a star as a planet orbits. That means there are still many questions about what these planets actually look like.

“Two different ways to explore planets give you different information,” says Palle. By catching the shadow created when a planet passes in front of its star, scientists can work out the diameter of that planet. By measuring the tiny gravitational force a planet exerts on a star, scientists can figure out its mass.

By combining the two measurements, scientists can understand the composition of the planet. Maybe it’s a big planet but the atmosphere is made mostly of gas like Jupiteror a small, dense, rocky planet like The earth.

These analyzes have been performed for individual planets, but are much rarer for the entire known population of such planets in Milky Way Galaxy. When scientists looked at the numbers – 43 planets in total – they found a surprising picture.

The density of a large percentage of the planets suggests that they are too light for their size to be made up of pure rock. Instead, these planets could be something like half rock and half water, or another lighter molecule. Imagine the difference between picking up a bowling ball and a soccer ball: they are the same size, but one is made up of a much lighter material.

It might be tempting to imagine these planets as something other than Kevin Costner’s Water World: completely covered by deep oceans. However, these planets are so close to their sun that any water on the surface would exist in the supercritical gas phase, which would widen their radii. “But we don’t see that in the samples,” explains Luque. “That shows that the water is not in the form face ocean.”

Instead, water may exist mixed in with rocks or in pockets below the surface. Those conditions would be similar to those of Jupiter moon Europa, believed to have liquid water underground.

“I was shocked when I saw this analysis – me and a lot Everyone in the hypothetical field these are all dry, rocky planets,” said scientist Jacob Bean, whose Luque team was involved to conduct further analyses.

The finding fits a theory of exoplanet formation that has fallen out of favor over the past few years, which holds that many planets form further in their solar systems and move inward over time. Imagine rocks and ice forming together in frigid conditions far away from a star, and then being slowly pulled inward by the star’s gravity.



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