Andrew Griffin wrote this article in The Independent:
New findings allow scientists to effectively peer back through time into the beginnings of other planetary systems after a major new finding.
“Higher mass stars have relatively more disks with gaps than lower mass stars, consistent with the already known correlations in exoplanets, where higher mass stars more often host gas-giant exoplanets. These correlations directly tell us that gaps in planet-forming disks are most likely caused by giant planets of Neptune mass and above.”
The finding also applies to star systems that have lower-mass stars; they are more likely to have massive rocky planets that are known as Super-Earths, something between the mass of our planet and Neptune’s. “Disks without gaps, which are more compact, lead to the formation of Super-Earths,” said van der Marel in a statement.
The findings could help researchers know where to look as they search our galaxy for other rocky planets like our own. “This new understanding of stellar mass dependencies will help to guide the search for small, rocky planets like Earth in the solar neighborhood,” said Gijs Mulders, assistant professor of astronomy at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago, Chile, and co-author on the research. headtopics.com
“We can use the stellar mass to connect the planet-forming disks around young stars to exoplanets around mature stars. When an exoplanet is detected, the planet-forming material is usually gone. So the stellar mass is a ‘tag’ that tells us what the planet-forming environment might have looked like for these exoplanets.”
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