London, Apr 12 (EFE).– Observations from NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope have revealed the existence outside the solar system of planets whose atmosphere has been completely stripped off by radiation from the star they orbit, an article in the journal Nature Communications said.

Scientists from Britain’s University of Birmingham used a technique known as asteroseismology to study the internal structure of different bodies detected by the telescope.

The findings by researchers led by Guy Davies support the hypothesis that planets orbiting too close to their star end up stripped of their atmosphere as a result of heat and intense radiation.

“For these planets, it is like standing next to a hairdryer turned up to its hottest setting. There has been much theoretical speculation that such planets might be stripped of their atmospheres. We now have the observational evidence to confirm this, which removes any lingering doubts over the theory,” Davies said.

Researchers think that this scenario might apply to all rocky planets wrapped in external gaseous layers.

Asteroseismology analyzes periodic oscillations on the surface of distant objects, helping to understand their composition with great accuracy.

The body’s internal structure and conditions determine the vibrations, enabling astronomers to infer from those movements the elements in the planet’s composition.

The study’s findings, according to Davies, have important implications for understanding the evolution of planetary systems and the function of central stars in the formation of planets.

“Our results show that planets of a certain size that lie close to their stars are likely to have been much larger at the beginning of their lives. Those planets will have looked very different,” Davies said. EFE