NASA's proposed Early eVolution Explorer mission aims to solve the ra… | HappeningNow.news

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NASA's proposed Early eVolution Explorer mission aims to solve the radius valley mystery

A debate has been raging among planetary scientists for more than a decade—why are there so few exoplanets with a radius of about 1.8 times that of Earth?

Source Summary Published June 14, 2026 Brief Under 1 min brief
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A debate has been raging among planetary scientists for more than a decade—why are there so few exoplanets with a radius of about 1.8 times that of Earth? Exoplanets are currently largely grouped into two distinct categories—"super-Earths" are below that size and have rocky interiors, whereas "sub-Neptunes" are above that size limit and appear puffier. But researchers don't really understand why the path of planetary evolution forces this bifurcation.

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