“the cores of the exoplanets are pushing away their atmospheres from the inside out”
Wait until the Plutopians hear about this; will only make them feel more validated in their claim to planethood
I never acknowledged Pluto’s demotion, long live Planet Pluto!
Always “Pluto, Pluto, Pluto”. Why does no one ever remember Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake? They’re each as much of a “planet” as Pluto is.
So, wait. It sounds like the hypothesis is that sub-Neptune gas giant blow off their atmospheres to become super-Earth rocky planets? Am I understanding this correctly?
Not really blowing off, they just don’t have enough gravity to keep it in
sub-Neptunes are susceptible to atmospheric loss. The exoplanets can lose their atmospheres if they don’t have enough mass, and therefore enough gravitational force, to keep their atmospheres. If this theory of atmospheric loss is true and the sub-Neptunes don’t have enough mass to hold on to their atmospheres, they’d likely shrink to the size of super-Earths, explaining the size gap between super-Earths and sub-Neptunes.
