The Universe could be home to billions of Earth-like planets but a great majority of them may have a totally different internal and atmospheric structure as compared to our planet, scientists suggest. The members of the research team include Garik Israelian and Jonay Gonzalez Hernandez (IAC), Elisa Delgado Mena and N Santos (University of Porto, Portugal), and J. Carter-Bond and D. O'Brien (Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona). The study of the photospheric stellar abundances of the planet-host stars is the key to understand ing how protoplanets form, as well as which protoplanetary clouds evolve planets and which do not. These studies, which have important implications for models of giant planet formation and evolution, also help us to investigate the internal and atmospheric structure and composition of extrasolar planets.
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