Researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have participated in a revealing international study and published at the prestigious magazine Science their results. They have found a correlation between the composition of rocky exoplanets and their host stars. They observed that the exoplanets present a higher iron composition than their stars.

A group of international researchers, including researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, have identified for the first time a correlation between the composition of rocky exoplanets and their host stars. They have found that planets tend to have around 4 times higher proportion of iron than stars. As stars and planets originate from the same material, this result suggests that planet formation processes affect the composition. Super-Earths and super-Mercuries appear to be distinct populations with differing compositions, implying differences in their formation processes.

The researchers estimated the density and iron content of rocky exoplanets by using their masses and radii. They used stellar elemental abundances measured using spectrographs such as the one at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma) to determine the composition of host stars.

You can read the full research article HERE.

This post is based on an article in Spanish by SINC.