Astronomers may soon be able to detect rocky planets that have been "stretched out" by the gravity of their host stars.
Planets that orbit extremely close to stars and suffer harsh conditions have been observed in the past, but "hot Jupiters" with large atmospheres have been easier to spot than rockier planets, the Royal Astronomical Society reported. Some of these harsh conditions include temperatures of more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and stretching caused by tidal forces.
Researchers modeled instances where planets orbiting close to small red dwarf stars (which are significantly fainter than our own sun) gave a "locked" rotation that keeps the same side of the object facing the blazing star at all times.
The researchers believe planets under these circumstances would be detectable in transit events, in which the object moves in front of its star and causes a dip in light that can be seen from Earth.
"Imagine taking a planet like the Earth or Mars, placing it near a cool red star and stretching it out. Analyzing the new shape alone will tell us a lot about the otherwise impossible-to-see internal structure of the planet and how it changes over time," said study leader Prabal Saxena of George Mason University.
If the researchers are able to detect these extreme exoplanets it could help them gain new insight into the properties of these rocky Earth-like planets.
"The subtle signals from stretched rocky planets could be found by some current telescopes, and certainly by much more powerful observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) that are due to enter service in the next few years," the society reported.
The findings were published in a recent edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
