In a paper highlighted today by Astronomy & Astrophysics journal, a team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) discovered observational evidence for the existence of two distinct populations of giant planets.
So far, more than 3500 planets have been detected orbiting solar type stars. Although recent results suggest that most planets in our Galaxy are rocky like Earth, a large population of giant planets, with masses that can go up to 10 or 20 times the mass of Jupiter (itself 320 times the mass of the Earth), was also discovered.
