Latest news with #Jupiter-like
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'Super-Earths' May Be Surprisingly Common, Scientists Reveal
Earth-like exoplanets might be more common throughout the Milky Way than previously believed, astronomers report in a new study. The researchers discovered an unusual super-Earth orbiting its star at a Jupiter-like distance, an orbital range for which only the frequency of larger planets – gas giants and ice giants – has been determined so far. "We found a 'super-Earth' – meaning it's bigger than our home planet but smaller than Neptune – in a place where only planets thousands or hundreds of times more massive than Earth were found before," says lead author and astrophysicist Weicheng Zang of the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). In addition to finding this seemingly quirky world, the authors combined their discovery with a larger sample of exoplanet data from a microlensing survey. Their findings indicate this planet might not be quite so quirky after all. The researchers studied changes in apparent brightness from the planet's host star, which they incorporated into broader data from the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) survey, a trio of telescopes located in Australia, Chile, and South Africa. By examining mass ratios between a large volume of exoplanets and host stars, the researchers shed new light on our galaxy's planetary demographics. Their results suggest super-Earths are not limited to short-period orbits near their host stars, which is where they've primarily been found. These intriguing exoplanets can also exist farther away, with orbital periods more akin to those of our Solar System's gas giants. It's generally harder to detect planets orbiting farther from their stars, but based on this study, Zang and his colleagues estimate one out of every three stars in the Milky Way should host a super-Earth with a Jupiter-like orbit. "Scientists knew there were more small planets than big planets, but in this study, we were able to show that within this overall pattern, there are excesses and deficits," says co-author Andrew Gould, an astronomer at Ohio State University. "It's very interesting." The study relied on a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing, in which a massive celestial object (serving as the lens) passes between an observer and a bright background object like a star. If the lens is massive enough, it gravitational field will warp spacetime enough to cause the path of light from the background source to curve on its way to the observer, like light bending through a magnifying glass. This creates a temporary spike in the object's brightness, which may last for minutes or months, depending on the alignment. The new study focuses on a microlensing event known as OGLE-2016-BLG-0007, first detected in early 2016. Microlensing events are rare, and only a fraction of known exoplanets have been detected this way. The technique is well-suited for revealing exoplanets orbiting farther from their stars, however. The new study is the largest of its kind to date, featuring three times as many exoplanets as previous samples, including many smaller ones. While previous research has shown how stars can host a variety of exoplanet sizes in relatively tight orbits, the new study points to comparable planetary diversity – and profusion – in the outer regions of these planetary systems, too. "This measurement of the planet population from planets somewhat larger than Earth all the way to the size of Jupiter and beyond shows us that planets, and especially super-Earths, in orbits outside the Earth's orbit are abundant in the galaxy," says co-author Jennifer Yee, an observational astronomer at the CfA's Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The term 'super-Earth' typically refers to the mass of an exoplanet, not its surface conditions or habitability, about which few details are available. Still, research like this may help demystify planetary formation and distribution in the Milky Way, building upon what our own Solar System can teach us. "This result suggests that in Jupiter-like orbits, most planetary systems may not mirror our Solar System," says co-author Youn Kil Jung of the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute that operates the KMTNet. These findings suggest our galaxy may teem with a wide variety of exoplanets. It also offers clues about how the different types of exoplanets form, but we still need a lot more data – which is easier said than done. "Finding a microlensing star event is hard. Finding a microlensing star with a planet is hard squared," says co-author Richard Pogge, an astronomer at Ohio State. "We have to look at hundreds of millions of stars to find even a hundred of these things." The study was published in Science. JWST Confirms Coldest Exoplanet Ever Found, Circling Its Dead Star Defunct Soviet Spacecraft Set to Crash to Earth in Fiery End to 53-Year Orbit Giant Structure in Deep Space Challenges Our Understanding of The Universe
Business Mayor
29-04-2025
- Science
- Business Mayor
Astronomers find Earth-like exoplanets common across the cosmos
Using the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), an international team of researchers has discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought, according to a new study. By studying light anomalies made by the newly found planet's host star and combining their results with a larger sample from a KMTNet microlensing survey, the team found that super-Earths can exist as far from their host star as our gas giants are from the sun, said Andrew Gould, co-author of the study and professor emeritus of astronomy at The Ohio State University. 'Scientists knew there were more small planets than big planets, but in this study, we were able to show that within this overall pattern, there are excesses and deficits,' he said. 'It's very interesting.' While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Still, researchers further estimated that for every three stars, there should be at least one super-Earth present with a Jupiter-like orbital period, suggesting these massive worlds are extremely prevalent across the universe, said Gould, whose early theoretical research helped develop the field of planetary microlensing. The findings in this study were made via microlensing, an observational effect that occurs when the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time to a detectable degree. When a foreground object, such as a star or planet, passes between an observer and a more distant star, light is curved from the source, causing an apparent increase in the object's brightness that can last anywhere from a few hours to several months. Astronomers can use these fluctuations, or bumps, in brightness to help locate alien worlds unlike our own. In this case, microlensing signals were used to locate OGLE-2016-BLG-0007, a super-Earth with a mass ratio roughly double that of Earth's and an orbit wider than Saturn's. These observations allowed the team to divide exoplanets into two groups, one that consists of super-Earths and Neptune-like planets and the other comprising gas giants like Jupiter or Saturn. This discovery opens new doors for planetary system science: Having a better understanding of exoplanet distribution can reveal new insights about the processes by which they form and evolve. The study, led by researchers in China, Korea and at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution in the United States, was recently published in the journal Science . To explain their results, researchers also compared their findings to predictions made from theoretical simulations of planet formation. Their results showed that while exoplanets can be separated into groups by mass and makeup, the mechanisms that may produce them can vary. 'The dominant theory of gas-giant formation is through runaway gas accretion, but other people have said that it could be both accretion and gravitational instability,' said Gould. 'We're saying we can't distinguish between those two yet.' Doing so will likely require greater swaths of long-term data from specialized systems such as KMTNet and other microlensing instruments like it, said Richard Pogge, another co-author of the study and a professor of astronomy at Ohio State. 'Finding a microlensing star event is hard. Finding a microlensing star with a planet is hard-squared,' he said. 'We have to look at hundreds of millions of stars to find even a hundred of these things.' These alignments are so rare that only 237 out of the more than 5,000 exoplanets ever discovered have been identified using the microlensing method. Now, with the help of three powerful custom-built telescopes located in South Africa, Chile and Australia, the KMTNet system routinely allows scientists to scour the cosmos for these amazing events, said Pogge. Most notably, it was scientists in Ohio State's Imaging Sciences Laboratory who designed and built the Korean Microlensing Telescope Network Cameras (KMTCam) that the system relies on to identify exoplanets. And as technology continues to evolve, having dedicated, global collaborations like this one will turn visions of scientific theory into real discoveries, said Pogge. 'We're like paleontologists reconstructing not only the history of the universe we live in but the processes that govern it,' he said. 'So helping to bring both of those pieces together into one picture has been enormously satisfying.' Other members of Ohio State's ISL team include Bruce Atwood, Tom O'Brien, Mark Johnson, Mark Derwent, Chris Colarosa, Jerry Mason, Daniel Pappalardo and Skip Shaller. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, Tsinghua University, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the China Manned Space Project, Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Super-Earth exoplanets more common across universe than thought: Study
A team of scientists has discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously team studied light anomalies made by the newly found planet's host star and combined their results with a larger sample from the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet) microlensing survey. Researchers came to the conclusion that super-Earths can exist as far from their host star as our gas giants are from the sun."Scientists knew there were more small planets than big planets, but in this study, we were able to show that within this overall pattern, there are excesses and deficits," said Andrew Gould, co-author of the study and professor emeritus of astronomy at The Ohio State University. Researchers have also stressed that it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Still, scientists further estimated that for every three stars, there should be at least one super-Earth present with a Jupiter-like orbital period, suggesting these massive worlds are extremely prevalent across the in the journal Science, the study highlights that exoplanets classified as super-Earths are commonly observed on short-period orbits, close to their host stars, but their abundance on wider orbits is poorly constrained. Gravitational microlensing is sensitive to exoplanets on wide orbits."We observed the microlensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-0007, which indicates an exoplanet with a planet-to-star mass ratio roughly double the Earth-Sun mass ratio, on an orbit longer than Saturn's," said researchers in the study."We combined this event with a larger sample from a microlensing survey to determine the distribution of mass ratios for planets on wide orbits. We infer that there are ~0.35 super-Earth planets per star on Jupiter-like orbits. The observations are most consistent with a bimodal distribution, with separate peaks for super-Earths and gas giants. We suggest that this reflects differences in their formation processes." The findings in this study were made via microlensing, an observational effect that occurs when the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time to a detectable degree. When a foreground object, such as a star or planet, passes between an observer and a more distant star, light is curved from the source, causing an apparent increase in the object's brightness that can last anywhere from a few hours to several months, according to a press release. Researchers stressed that astronomers can use these fluctuations, or bumps, in brightness to help locate alien worlds unlike our own. In this case, microlensing signals were used to locate OGLE-2016-BLG-0007, a super-Earth with a mass ratio roughly double that of Earth's and an orbit wider than Saturn's.
The Print
27-04-2025
- Science
- The Print
Astronomers discover Earth-like exoplanets common across the cosmos: Study
While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Washington DC [US], April 27 (ANI): Astronomers have discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought. Still, researchers estimated that for every three stars, there should be at least one super-Earth present with a Jupiter-like orbital period, suggesting these massive worlds are extremely prevalent across the universe. Using the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), an international team of researchers has discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought, according to a new study. By studying light anomalies made by the newly found planet's host star and combining their results with a larger sample from a KMTNet microlensing survey, the team found that super-Earths can exist as far from their host star as our gas giants are from the sun, said Andrew Gould, co-author of the study and professor emeritus of astronomy at The Ohio State University. 'Scientists knew there were more small planets than big planets, but in this study, we were able to show that within this overall pattern, there are excesses and deficits,' he said. 'It's very interesting.' While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Still, researchers further estimated that for every three stars, there should be at least one super-Earth present with a Jupiter-like orbital period, suggesting these massive worlds are extremely prevalent across the universe, said Gould, whose early theoretical research helped develop the field of planetary microlensing. The findings in this study were made via microlensing, an observational effect that occurs when the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time to a detectable degree. When a foreground object, such as a star or planet, passes between an observer and a more distant star, light is curved from the source, causing an apparent increase in the object's brightness that can last anywhere from a few hours to several months. (ANI) This report is auto-generated from ANI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
NDTV
27-04-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Earth-Like Exoplanets More Common Across The Cosmos: Study
Astronomers have discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought. While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Using the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), an international team of researchers has discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought, according to a new study. By studying light anomalies made by the newly found planet's host star and combining their results with a larger sample from a KMTNet microlensing survey, the team found that super-Earths can exist as far from their host star as our gas giants are from the sun, said Andrew Gould, co-author of the study and professor emeritus of astronomy at The Ohio State University. "Scientists knew there were more small planets than big planets, but in this study, we were able to show that within this overall pattern, there are excesses and deficits," he said. "It's very interesting." While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, planets with wider paths can be difficult to detect. Still, researchers further estimated that for every three stars, there should be at least one super-Earth present with a Jupiter-like orbital period, suggesting these massive worlds are extremely prevalent across the universe, said Gould, whose early theoretical research helped develop the field of planetary microlensing. The findings in this study were made via microlensing, an observational effect that occurs when the presence of mass warps the fabric of space-time to a detectable degree. When a foreground object, such as a star or planet, passes between an observer and a more distant star, light is curved from the source, causing an apparent increase in the object's brightness that can last anywhere from a few hours to several months.
