Using the Korean Microlens Telescope Network (KMTNET), an international team of researchers have discovered that super-earth exoplanets are more common throughout the universe than previously thought.
By studying the light anomalies created by the newly discovered planet’s host stars and combining the results with larger samples from the KMTNET microlens survey, the team discovered that our gas giants can exist far from the host stars, just like from the sun.
“Scientists knew there were smaller planets than larger planets, but this study was able to show that there was an excess and deficit in this overall pattern,” said Andrew Gould, a co-author of the study and co-author of Astronomy at Ohio State University.
How Microlensing Helps Discover Super Art Explanet
It is relatively easy to find a world orbiting near a star, but planets with wider orbits are difficult to detect.
Still, the researchers further estimated that for every three stars at least one super-Earth exoplanet should have a Jupiter-like orbital period. This suggests that these large worlds are very common throughout the universe.
The findings of this study were made via microlenses. This is an observational effect that occurs when the presence of mass distorts a space-time fabric to a detectable degree.
As objects in the foreground, such as stars or planets, pass between the observer and the more distant stars, light curves from the source, and the brightness of the object continues for hours to months and months is clearly increased.
Astronomers can use these variations, or raised, in brightness, to find an alien world unlike us. In this case, I found OGLE-2016-BLG-0007 using a microlens signal. This is a super-earth exoplanet with a massive Earth ratio, with a mass ratio of about twice that of Saturn, and a wider orbit.
These observations allowed the team to split the exoplanet into two groups. One is made up of planets like Super Earth and Neptune, while the other is made up of gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.
This discovery opens new doors for planetary systems science. A better understanding of the Xplanet distributions can reveal new insights into the processes they form and evolve.
There are various mechanisms for producing exoplanets
To explain their results, the researchers also compared their findings with predictions made from theoretical simulations of planetary formation.
Their results showed that super-Earth deplanets can be separated into groups by mass and makeup, but the mechanisms that may generate them may differ.
“The dominant theory of gas giants is due to the addition of runaway gas, but others say it could be both accretion and gravity instability,” Gould said. “We say we can’t distinguish between these two yet.”
Another co-author of the study and professor of astronomy in Ohio, Richard Podge said, “It’s hard to find a microlens star event. Finding a microlens star on a planet is a hard square.
“We have to look at hundreds of millions of stars to find 100 of these things.”
Reconstructing the history of the universe with KMTCAM
These alignments are so rare that only 237 of the over 5,000 super-Earth exoplanets discovered so far have been identified using microlens methods.
With the help of three powerful custom built telescopes currently in South Africa, Chile and Australia, the KMTNET system allows scientists to scrutinise the universe for these amazing events.
As technology continues to evolve, having such dedicated global collaborations will transform the vision of scientific theory into real discoveries.
Podge concluded: “We seem to be paleontologists who reconstruct not only the history of the universe we live in, but the processes that govern it.
“So helping to put both of these pieces together into one photo was extremely satisfying.”
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