Two giant gas planets are transforming into super-Earths

The spectacular transformation of two future super-Earths has been captured by NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope and WMKeck's Keck II Telescope (located in Hawaii).

According to Sci-News, a team of scientists led by Dr. Michael Zhang from the California Institute of Technology (USA) scoured Hubble data and discovered two spectacular events in the two constellations Gemini and Serpent.

Graphic image depicting a small Neptune transforming into a super-Earth -

Those are both "small Neptune", which are gas planets with the same properties but smaller than Neptune in the Solar System.

The first planet is HD 63433c, orbiting a G5-type star named HD 63433, located 73 light-years away, in the constellation Gemini. Scientists have found evidence of hydrogen gas moving from its atmosphere to its parent star at a speed of 50 kilometers per second.

Meanwhile, the second planet, TOI-560b, loses helium in a similar way as it orbits its parent star TOI-560, type K4 in the constellation of Serpent.

The reason they lose their atmosphere is that the gravity of the small Neptune form is often weak, so being close to the parent star, it cannot hold the atmosphere.

Neptune's structure is similar to that of Neptune, consisting of a dense atmosphere surrounding a large rocky core. The above-mentioned fierce atmospheric loss process will make it inert one day, possibly retaining only a thin layer of atmosphere or even losing it all.

At that time, they will transition from a gaseous planet to a rocky planet. Because the rocky cores of sub-Neptunes are usually still much larger than Earth, it will become a super-Earth.