Twin planets orbiting a distant star could also be half water

A pair of dual planets known as Kepler-138 c and d look like water worlds, with steamy atmospheres and oceans that take up half their whole quantity

By Leah Crane

Two unusual planets 218 mild years away could also be fully coated in oceans 500 occasions deeper than Earth’s. Whereas there most likely isn’t life on these twin water worlds, known as Kepler-138 c and d, there could also be much more of them scattered all through the universe.

Each exoplanets orbit a star known as Kepler-138 and had been present in 2014. The observations on the time hinted that they had been pretty completely different worlds from each other however that they had been made largely of rock. Now, Caroline Piaulet on the College of Montreal and her colleagues have taken a brand new set of observations utilizing the Hubble and Spitzer area telescopes, in addition to the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, that point out in any other case.

Whereas the star was beforehand thought to have solely three planets, these observations confirmed proof of a fourth world. Together with that additional planet in simulations of the system revealed that Kepler-138 c and d are much more comparable than researchers initially thought. Every is a bit more than twice as huge as Earth with about 1.5 occasions Earth’s radius.

By plugging these new numbers into their fashions, the researchers discovered that as much as half of the quantity of every planet should be made from one thing lighter than rock however heavier than the hydrogen and helium ubiquitous in gaseous worlds – the almost certainly rationalization is water. “It may be different molecules that may have an analogous density to water – methane or ammonia could be good alternate options – however the purpose why we expect it’s almost certainly water is that water is essentially the most plentiful of those alternate options within the universe,” says Piaulet.

Nonetheless, regardless of its significance for all times, water doesn’t essentially make a planet liveable. Kepler-138 c and d are each comparatively near their star, so as a substitute of the icy shells that mark many of the water-laden worlds in our personal photo voltaic system, they most likely have dense atmospheres of steam. Beneath the environment, temperatures are anticipated to achieve past 200°C and pressures could be a minimum of 100 occasions the floor strain on Earth – maybe as a lot as hundreds of occasions increased.

“These most likely aren’t one of the best planets for all times,” says Piaulet. “However the truth that these exist signifies that there might be planets with compositions like this, however only a tiny bit farther from their host stars, and that opens the door to a totally new sort of liveable world.”

Journal reference: Nature Astronomy, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01835-4

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