Super-Earth Archives - Many Worlds

Artist renderings of exoplanets previously detected by the Kepler Space Telescope (NASA)

In the biggest haul ever of new exoplanets, scientists with NASA’s Kepler mission announced the confirmation of 1,284 additional planets outside our solar system — including nine that are relatively small and within the habitable zones of their host stars. That almost doubles the number of these treasured rocky planets that orbit their stars at distances that could potentially support liquid water and potentially life.

Prior to today’s announcement, scientists using Kepler and all other exoplanet detection approaches had confirmed some 2,100 planets in 1,300 planetary systems. So this is a major addition to the exoplanets known to exist and that are now available for further study by scientists.

These detections comes via the Kepler Space Telescope, which collected data on tiny decreases in the output of light from distant stars during its observing period between 2009 and 2013. Those dips in light were determined by the Kepler team to be planets crossing in front of the stars rather than impostors to a 99 percent-plus probability.

As Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters put it, “This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another Earth.”

he histogram shows the number of planet discoveries by year for more than the past two decades of the exoplanet search. The blue bar shows previous non-Kepler planet discoveries, the light blue bar shows previous Kepler planet discoveries, the orange bar displays the 1,284 new validated planets. (NASA Ames/W. Stenzel; Princeton University/T. Morton)

The histogram shows the number of planet discoveries by year for more than the past two decades of the exoplanet search. The blue bar shows previous non-Kepler planet discoveries, the light blue bar shows previous Kepler planet discoveries, the orange bar displays the 1,284 new validated planets.
(NASA Ames/W. Stenzel; Princeton University/T. Morton)

The primary goals of the Kepler mission are to determine the demographics of exoplanets in the galaxy, and more specifically to determine the population of small, rocky planets (less than 1.6 times the size of Earth) in the habitable zones of their stars. While orbiting in such a zone by no means assures that life is, or was, ever present, it is considered to be one of the most important criteria.

The final Kepler accounting of how likely it is for a star to host such an exoplanet in its habitable zone won’t come out until next year. But by all estimations, Kepler has already jump-started the process and given a pretty clear sense of just how ubiquitous exoplanets, and even potentially habitable exoplanets, appear to be.

“They say not to count our chickens before they’re hatched, but that’s exactly what these results allow us to do based on probabilities that each egg (candidate) will hatch into a chick (bona fide planet),” said Natalie Batalha, co-author of the paper in the Astrophysical Journal and the Kepler mission scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center.… Read more

Part 2 of 2

The Kepler-452 system compared alongside the Kepler-186 system and our solar system. Kepler-186 is a miniature solar system that would fit entirely inside the orbit of Mercury. The size of the habitable zone of star Kepler-452, considered one of the most “Earth-like” exoplanets found so far, is nearly the same as that of our sun. “Super-Earth” Kepler-452b orbits its star once every 385 days. (NASA Ames/JPL-CalTech/R. Hurt)

With such a large proportion of identified exoplanets in the super-Earth to sub-Neptune class, an inescapable question arises: how conducive might they be to the origin and maintenance of life?

So little is actually know about the characteristics of these planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune (which has a radius four times greater than our planet) that few are willing to offer a strong opinion.

Nonetheless, there are some seemingly good reasons to be optimistic, about the smaller super-Earths in particular. And there are some seemingly good reasons to be pessimistic –many appear to be covered in a thick layer of hydrogen and helium gas, with a layer of sooty smog on top, and that does not sound like an hospitable environment at all.

But if twenty years of exoplanet hunting has produced any undeniable truth, it is that surprising discoveries are a constant and overturned theories the norm. As described in Tuesday’s post, it was only several years ago that results from the Kepler Space Telescope alerted scientists to the widespread presence of these super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, so the fluidity of the field is hardly surprising.

One well-respected researcher who is bullish on super-Earth biology is Harvard University astronomy professor Dimitar Sasselov. He argues that the logic of physics tells us that the “sweet spot” for planetary habitability is planets from the size of Earth to those perhaps as large as 1.4 Earth radii. Earth, he says, is actually small for a planet with life, and planets with a 1.2 Earth radii would probably be ideal.

I will return to his intriguing analysis, but first will catalog a bit of what scientists have detected or observed so far about super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. As a reminder, here’s the chart of Kepler exoplanet candidate and confirmed planets that orbit G, K and M main sequence stars put together by Mission Scientist for the Kepler Space Telescope Kepler Natalie Batalha.

Kepler exoplanets candidates, both confirmed and unconfirmed, orbiting G, K, and M type main sequence stars, by radii and fraction of the total.

Many Worlds

Tag: Super-Earth

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