| rdfs:comment
| - An ocean planet, or waterworld, is a type of planet whose surface is completely covered with an ocean of water or other liquid. Planets that form in the outer fringes of a star system begin as a comet-like mixture of rock and ice. Some icy planets migrate inward to orbits where their ice melts, turning them into ocean planets. Such planets can support aquatic life.
- One of the serious explanations for the interstellar silence that prompted the Fermi Paradox is that most of the Earth-like worlds most likely to produce life are covered in oceans. Thus they lack the mix of ocean and land that made evolution of an intelligent species using technology possible.
- Planetary objects that form in the outer solar system begin as a comet-like mixture of roughly 50% water and 50% rock by weight. Simulations of solar system formation have shown that planets are likely to migrate inward or outward as they form, presenting the possibility that icy planets could wind up in orbits where their water melts into liquid form, turning them into ocean planets. This possibility was first discussed in the professional astronomical literature by Marc Kuchner and Alain Léger in 2003.
- Ocean planets do not merely have oceans like Earth do. They are entirely covered in extremely deep oceans and have no land or shallows at all. A layer of phase II ice seals all geological activity and oxidizable metals from the water above, so even the small amounts of oxygen produced through photodessociation (UV radiation breaking water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen escapes to space while the oxygen stays in the atmosphere) is enough to make the atmosphere oxygen-rich.
|
| abstract
| - Planetary objects that form in the outer solar system begin as a comet-like mixture of roughly 50% water and 50% rock by weight. Simulations of solar system formation have shown that planets are likely to migrate inward or outward as they form, presenting the possibility that icy planets could wind up in orbits where their water melts into liquid form, turning them into ocean planets. This possibility was first discussed in the professional astronomical literature by Marc Kuchner and Alain Léger in 2003. The oceans on such planets could be hundreds of kilometers deep, much deeper than the oceans of Earth. 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 we understand ice. If the planet is close enough to its sun that the water's temperature reaches the boiling point, the water will become supercritical and lack a well-defined surface.
- An ocean planet, or waterworld, is a type of planet whose surface is completely covered with an ocean of water or other liquid. Planets that form in the outer fringes of a star system begin as a comet-like mixture of rock and ice. Some icy planets migrate inward to orbits where their ice melts, turning them into ocean planets. Such planets can support aquatic life.
- One of the serious explanations for the interstellar silence that prompted the Fermi Paradox is that most of the Earth-like worlds most likely to produce life are covered in oceans. Thus they lack the mix of ocean and land that made evolution of an intelligent species using technology possible.
- Ocean planets do not merely have oceans like Earth do. They are entirely covered in extremely deep oceans and have no land or shallows at all. A layer of phase II ice seals all geological activity and oxidizable metals from the water above, so even the small amounts of oxygen produced through photodessociation (UV radiation breaking water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and the hydrogen escapes to space while the oxygen stays in the atmosphere) is enough to make the atmosphere oxygen-rich. There is no land to stop hurricanes, so there are lots of hurricanes. They mix the air with the water, oxygenizing the water. Life can exist, but only sparsely due to extreme scarcity of minerals. Sort of like the upper water layers of deep open ocean on Earth, just without the fertilizing Saharan dust. One way they can form is if a icy world from the outer reaches of its solar system migrates closer to the star over time. Extra heat closer to the star then melts the ice, and an ocean planet forms. That type of ocean planet orbits relatively stable stars and have strong gravity, and thus will last long, especially if the star is small and consumes its own fusion fuel (hydrogen) slowly. Another way for ocean planets to form is when the star becomes a red giant and melts small icy worlds in the outer reaches of its solar system, but the star is aging rapidly and the world has weak gravity, so that type of ocean planet (or more likely ocean moon) will not last long.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)