Abstract
We used a sample of super-Earth-like planets detected by the Doppler
spectroscopy and transit techniques to explore the dependence of orbital
parameters of the planets on the metallicity of their host stars. We confirm
the previous results that super-Earths orbiting around metal-rich stars are not
observed to be as distant from their host stars as we observe their metal-poor
counterparts to be. The orbits of these super-Earths with metal-rich hosts
usually do not reach into the Habitable Zone (HZ), keeping them very hot and
inhabitable. We found that most of the known planets in the HZ are orbiting
their GK-type hosts which are metal-poor. The metal-poor nature of planets in
the HZ suggests a high Mg abundance relative to Si and high Si abundance
relative to Fe. These results lead us to speculate that HZ planets might be
more frequent in the ancient Galaxy and had compositions different from that of
our Earth.
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