In a rare discovery, scientists have discovered a solar system with three super-Earths.

Astronomers have discovered a star system containing three super-Earths and two super-Mercuries, a very rare and unique kind of planet. In fact, supermercury is so rare that only eight have been discovered so far.

HD In the 23472 star system, ESPRESSO’s spectrograph he discovered two “supermercury” worlds. Astronomers have found these planets to be less common. The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, shows how the composition of small planets varies depending on where they are, how hot they are, and what kind of star they orbit. was investigated.

Susana Barros, a researcher at the Institute for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA), who led the project, said the purpose of observing the planetary system is to understand what the small planets are made of and what their atmospheres are like. It is to know how it is formed from to have nothing.

“The evaporation of the atmosphere could be related to star irradiation. “Surprisingly, the team found that this system is composed of three super-Earths with a significant atmosphere and two Super-Mercuries, which are the closest planets to the star,” the researcher revealed.

HD 23472 has five exoplanets, three of which are smaller than Earth. Using the radial velocity method, these five planets turned out to be among the lightest exoplanets ever discovered. This method can be used to detect small changes in a star’s velocity caused by planets orbiting the star.

A spectroscope called ESPRESSO at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) VLT in Chile made this discovery possible thanks to its precision. Super-Earth and Super-Mercury are similar in composition to Earth and Mercury, but have a higher mass. The main difference is that supermercury contains more iron. Such other worlds are extremely rare.

In fact, we only know of eight, including the two we just found. It is not known why Mercury, one of the densest planets in the solar system, has a larger and heavier core than Earth.

Mercury’s mantle may have been lost in a massive collision, or Mercury may be the hottest planet in the solar system and part of its mantle may have melted. To understand how these things happened, we need to find other dense planets like Mercury that orbit other stars.

“It’s worth noting that the discovery of two super-Mercuries in the same planetary system, rather than just one, paints a clear picture for scientists. “We identified a system with two super-Mercuries for the first time utilising the ESPRESSO spectrograph.” This helps us understand how these planets developed,” says Alejandro Suárez, an IAC researcher and co-author of this work.

“The idea of a massive impact creating a Super-Mercury is already extremely implausible; two giant impacts in the same system appears extremely unlikely.” According to co-author and IAC researcher Jonay González, additional characterisation of the planet’s composition would be required to comprehend how these two super-Mercuries evolved.

With the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and its first-generation high-resolution spectrograph ANDES, scientists will be able to look at the surface for the first time and see if it has an atmosphere or not. The final goal of the team is to find another planet like Earth.