Microlensing events indicate that super-Earth exoplanets are common in Jupiter-like orbits
Exoplanets classified as super-Earths are commonly observed on short-period orbits, close to their host stars, but their abundance on wider orbits is poorly constrained. Gravitational microlensing is sensitive to exoplanets on wide orbits. We observed the microlensing event OGLE-2016-BLG-0007, which indicates an exoplanet with a planet-to-star mass ratio roughly double the Earth-Sun mass ratio, on an orbit longer than Saturn's. We combined this event with a larger sample from a microlensing survey to determine the distribution of mass ratios for planets on wide orbits. We infer that there are ~0.35 super-Earth planets per star on Jupiter-like orbits. The observations are most consistent with a bimodal distribution, with separate peaks for super-Earths and gas giants. We suggest that this reflects differences in their formation processes.
Authors
- Sang-Mok Cha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7511-2950)
- Yongseok Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7594-8072)
- I. Soszyński (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7777-0842)
- Michael D. Albrow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3316-4012)
- Weicheng Zang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6000-3463)
- Hongjing Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0626-8465)
- Yuki Satoh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1228-4122)
- Y. Itow (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8198-1968)
- M. Gromadzki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1650-1518)
- Kyu‐Ha Hwang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9241-4117)
- Akihiko Fukui (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4909-5763)
- Richard Barry (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4916-0892)
- Shude Mao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8317-2788)
- Hibiki Yama (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7692-0581)
- Clément Ranc (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2388-4534)
- Krzysztof A. Rybicki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9326-9329)
- D. P. Bennett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8043-8413)
- M. K. Szymański (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0548-8995)
- J. Skowron (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2335-1730)
- Byeong-Gon Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6982-7722)
- R. Poleski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9245-6368)
- Yoon-Hyun Ryu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9823-2907)
- Wei Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4027-4711)
- Yossi Shvartzvald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1525-5041)
- Hanyue Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-3082-8021)
- Seung‐Lee Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0562-5643)
- Chung‐Uk Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0043-3925)
- Rintaro Kirikawa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3016-4211)
- Dong-Joo Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5737-0908)
- Aparna Bhattacharya (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-2788-1554)
- Naoki Koshimoto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2302-9562)
- Sun‐Ju Chung (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6285-4528)
- Cheongho Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2641-9964)
- T. Sumi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4035-5012)
- Aikaterini Vandorou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9881-4760)
- A. Udalski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5207-5619)
- Youn Kil Jung (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0314-6000)
- Mio Tomoyoshi
- Patryk Iwanek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6212-7221)
- Shota Miyazaki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9818-1513)
- Stela Ishitani Silva (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2267-1246)
- Jiyuan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1279-0666)
- Renkun Kuang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2337-0533)
- I. A. Bond (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8131-8891)
- P. Pietrukowicz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2339-5899)
- P. Mróz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7016-1692)
- K. Ulaczyk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6364-408X)
- Nicholas J. Rattenbury (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5069-319X)
- Hyoun-Woo Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8263-1006)
- In-Gu Shin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4355-9838)
- Greg Olmschenk (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8472-2219)
- Yuki Hirao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4776-8618)
- Jennifer C. Yee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9481-7123)
- Hirosane Fujii
- Y. Matsubara (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9629-4810)
- Dong-Jin Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4292-9649)
- P. J. Tristram (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8289-9884)
- S. Kozłowski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4084-880X)
- Richard W. Pogge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1435-3053)
- Ryusei Hamada
- Kansuke Yamashita
- Marcin Wrona (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3051-274X)
- Y. Muraki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1978-2092)
- Xiangyu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3112-3305)
- Zhecheng Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6461-5256)
- Daisuke Suzuki
- Fumio Abe
- Andrew Gould
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- University of Auckland (NZ)
- Chungbuk National University (KR)
- University of Canterbury (NZ)
- Kanto Gakuin University (JP)
- Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KR)
- Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JP)
- Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (FR)
- Westlake University (CN)
- Kyung Hee University (KR)
- University of Warwick (GB)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (DE)
- Osaka Health Science University (JP)
- Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US)
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (ES)
- Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (JP)
- University of Warsaw (PL)
- Massey University (NZ)
- The Ohio State University (US)
- Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
- Nagoya University (JP)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- The University of Tokyo (JP)
- Villanova University (US)
- The University of Osaka (JP)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2025-04-24
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adn6088
- Citations
- 21
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 24.25