Ocean planet

Artist's illustrations of hypothetical ocean planets with two natural satellites.

An ocean planet, aquaplanet or water world[1] is a hypothetical type of exoplanet wherein the surface is completely covered by water, and a substantial portion of its mass is water.

Formation

Planetary objects that form in the outer Solar System begin as a comet-like mixture of roughly half water and half rock by mass. Simulations of Solar System formation and of extra-solar system formation have shown that planets are likely to migrate inward (i.e., toward the star) as they form.[2][3][4] Outward migration may also occur under particular conditions.[4] Inward migration presents the possibility that icy planets could move to orbits where their ice melts into liquid form, turning them into ocean planets. This possibility was first discussed in the professional astronomical literature by Marc Kuchner[5] and Alain Léger[6] in 2003.

Structure

Although 70.8% of all Earth's surface is covered in water,[7] water accounts for just some 0.05% of Earth’s mass. There are worlds where more than 10% of the mass may be water. This may be the case, for example, for all the six innermost planets orbiting the star Kepler-11.[8] These planets may have oceans hundreds of kilometres deep.[9] Their abyssal depths would be so deep and dense that even at high temperatures the pressure would turn the water into ice. The immense pressures in the lower regions of these oceans could lead to the formation of a mantle of exotic forms of ice. This ice would not necessarily be as cold as conventional ice. If the planet is close enough to its star that the water reaches its boiling point, the water will become supercritical and lack a well-defined surface.[6] Even on cooler water-dominated planets, the atmosphere can be much thicker than that of Earth, and composed largely of water vapor, producing a very strong greenhouse effect. Such planets would have to be small enough not to be able to retain a thick envelope of hydrogen and helium, otherwise they would form a warmer version of an ice giant instead, like Uranus and Neptune.

Smaller ocean planets would have less dense atmospheres and lower gravity; thus, liquid could evaporate much more easily than on more massive ocean planets. Theoretically, such planets could have higher waves than their more massive counterparts due to their lower gravity.

Examples

The extrasolar planet GJ 1214 b is the most likely known candidate for an ocean planet.[10][11] Many more such objects are expected to be discovered by Kepler, such as the recently discovered ocean planet candidate Kepler-22b.

Possibilities for colonization

An ocean planet has no dry surface landmasses. One of two processes would be required:

  1. Constructing an artificial surface, either from a network of large platforms or series of floating settlements.
  2. Constructing artificial islands from solid materials gathered elsewhere. This is not viable if the ocean is hundreds or thousands of miles deep.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Water Worlds and Ocean Planets". Solsation.com. 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  2. ↑ Tanaka, H.; Takeuchi, T.; Ward, W. R. (2002). "Three-Dimensional Interaction between a Planet and an Isothermal Gaseous Disk. I. Corotation and Lindblad Torques and Planet Migration". The Astrophysical Journal. 565 (2): 1257–1274. Bibcode:2002ApJ...565.1257T. doi:10.1086/324713.
  3. ↑ D'Angelo, G.; Lubow, S. H. (2010). "Three-dimensional Disk-Planet Torques in a Locally Isothermal Disk". The Astrophysical Journal. 724 (1): 730–747. arXiv:1009.4148Freely accessible. Bibcode:2010ApJ...724..730D. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/724/1/730.
  4. 1 2 Lubow, S. H.; Ida, S. (2011). "Planet Migration". In S. Seager. Exoplanets. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ. pp. 347–371. arXiv:1004.4137Freely accessible. Bibcode:2011exop.book..347L.
  5. ↑ Kuchner, Marc (2003). "Volatile-rich Earth-Mass Planets in the Habitable Zone". Astrophysical Journal. 596: L105–L108. arXiv:astro-ph/0303186Freely accessible. Bibcode:2003ApJ...596L.105K. doi:10.1086/378397.
  6. 1 2 Léger, Alain (2004). "A New Family of Planets ? "Ocean Planets"". Icarus. 169 (2): 499–504. arXiv:astro-ph/0308324Freely accessible. Bibcode:2004Icar..169..499L. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2004.01.001.
  7. ↑ Pidwirny, M. "Surface area of our planet covered by oceans and continents.(Table 8o-1)". University of British Columbia, Okanagan. 2006. Retrieved May 13, 2016.
  8. ↑ D'Angelo, G.; Bodenheimer, P. (2016). "In Situ and Ex Situ Formation Models of Kepler 11 Planets". The Astrophysical Journal: in press. arXiv:1606.08088Freely accessible. Bibcode:2016arXiv160608088D.
  9. ↑ Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M. Ocean Worlds: The Story of Seas on Earth and Other Planets. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. pp. 258-259.
  10. ↑ David Charbonneau; Zachory K. Berta; Jonathan Irwin; Christopher J. Burke; et al. (2009). "A super-Earth transiting a nearby low-mass star". Nature. 462 (17 December 2009): 891–894. arXiv:0912.3229Freely accessible. Bibcode:2009Natur.462..891C. doi:10.1038/nature08679. PMID 20016595. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  11. ↑ Kuchner, Seager; Hier-Majumder, M.; Militzer, C. A. (2007). "Mass–radius relationships for solid exoplanets". The Astrophysical Journal. 669 (2): 1279–1297. arXiv:0707.2895Freely accessible. Bibcode:2007ApJ...669.1279S. doi:10.1086/521346.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/5/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.