Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery about super-Earths, planets with masses up to 10 times that of our planet. According to researchers, these rocky worlds are more common in the universe than previously thought. The team used a gravitational microlensing event to detect a small exoplanet in a wide orbit around its star.
The discovery was made possible by the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), which uses Einstein’s theory of general relativity to hunt for planets. The researchers found that super-Earths are abundant in orbits between those of Earth and Saturn, but also common at larger distances from their host stars.
This new data suggests that there may be 0.35 super-Earth planets per star on wide Jupiter-like orbits. The findings could have implications for our understanding of habitable zones around other stars, which are regions where liquid water can exist on planetary surfaces.
The team’s research provides a new piece of the habitable zone picture and will help characterize the population of Earth-like planets. The discovery was published in the journal Science and is exciting because it proves KMTNet’s capability to find smaller planets, which is essential for understanding planet populations.
The researchers are now working on increasing the size of the planet sample by including more seasons of KMTNet data and improving the quality of the data reductions to detect weaker planetary signals. The discovery sheds new light on the universe and its potential for supporting life beyond our planet.
Source: https://www.space.com/the-universe/exoplanets/scientists-discover-super-earth-exoplanets-are-more-common-in-the-universe-than-we-thought