Most exoplanets, we are told, fall into this size range and it is not yet known if it has a rocky surface, considered important for life. Here’s a roundup of some things we know.
Tag: water
Exoplanets: Those water worlds would have sterile oceans too…
Researchers: An all-ocean planet would be sterile due to lack of nutrients leached from land.
Shedding light on water’s weird qualities
Researchers: Both highly ordered and disordered tetrahedral arrangements give water its “peculiar properties.” The paper’s title spells this out: “Water-like anomalies as a function of tetrahedrality.”
Recent finding: The “water world” exoplanets are not habitable ocean planets
So, it turns out, even if there IS lots of water in a solar system, that doesn’t add up to habitability either. Talk about Rare Earth and Privileged Planet.
How can lots of water worlds be “bad news for life”?
In other words, Earth doesn’t just “have water”; it is fine-tuned for life. We need to find exoplanets that are likewise fine-tuned.
Experiment makes fundamental asymmetry of water “glaringly clear”
At one time, it wathought that the mechanisms by which water transports the H+ and OH− ions were mirror images of each other, though in recent years, asymmetry was glimpsed: A team of scientists has uncovered new molecular properties of water—a discovery of a phenomenon that had previously gone unnoticed. Liquid water is known to Read More…