Super-Earths wreak havoc

Simulations show the common planet type would cause chaos in our Solar System

- Prof Lewis Dartnell

The more we've learned about the planetary systems orbiting other stars in the galaxy, the more we've realised just how unusual our own Solar System is. Most exoplanetary systems have very different architectures to our own. The Kepler-11 system, for example, is exceedingly compact, with six planets crammed within the equivalent orbit of Venus. Other systems contain worlds with extremely elliptical orbits - such as HD 20782 b - which indicate significant past effects of gravitational interactions between planets. And one of the most common kinds of exoplanets to turn up in our astronomical searches is not present at all in the Solar System: super-Earths. Super-Earth planets have a mass several times larger than Earth's but substantially less than ice giants like Uranus and Neptune.