Ocean world

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
Ocean planet
)
Earth's surface is dominated by the ocean, which forms 75% of Earth's surface.

An ocean world, ocean planet, panthalassic planet, maritime world, water world or aquaplanet, is a type of 

eutectic mixture with water, as is likely the case of Titan's inner ocean) or hydrocarbons (like on Titan's surface, which could be the most abundant kind of exosea).[6] The study of extraterrestrial oceans is referred to as planetary oceanography
.

Earth is the only astronomical object known to presently have bodies of liquid water on its surface, although several exoplanets have been found with the right conditions to support liquid water.[7] There are also considerable amounts of subsurface water found on Earth, mostly in the form of aquifers.[8] For exoplanets, current technology cannot directly observe liquid surface water, so atmospheric water vapor may be used as a proxy.[9] The characteristics of ocean worlds provide clues to their history and the formation and evolution of the Solar System as a whole. Of additional interest is their potential to originate and host life.

In June 2020, NASA scientists reported that it is likely that exoplanets with oceans are common in the Milky Way galaxy, based on mathematical modeling studies.[10][11]

Overview

Solar System planetary bodies

Enceladus

Ocean worlds are of extreme interest to

cryovolcanism
.

A host of other bodies in the Solar System are considered candidates to host subsurface oceans based upon a single type of observation or by theoretical modeling, including

Exoplanets

A set of exoplanets of varying size containing water, compared with the Earth (artist concept; 17 August 2018)[25]
rocky planets
.

Outside the Solar System, exoplanets that have been described as candidate ocean worlds include GJ 1214 b,[26][27] Kepler-22b, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f,[28][29][30][31] and the planets of Kepler-11[32] and TRAPPIST-1.[33][34]

More recently, the exoplanets

Kepler-138d have been found to have densities consistent with large fractions of their mass being composed of water.[35][36] Additionally, models of the massive rocky planet LHS 1140 b suggest its surface may be covered in a deep ocean.[37]

Although 70.8% of all Earth's surface is covered in water,[38] water accounts for only 0.05% of Earth's mass. An extraterrestrial ocean could be so deep and dense that even at high temperatures the pressure would turn the water into ice. The immense pressures of many 1,000 bar in the lower regions of such oceans, could lead to the formation of a mantle of exotic forms of ice such as ice V.[32] 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.[39] 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,[40] or be close enough to their primary star to be stripped of these light elements.[32] Otherwise, they would form a warmer version of an ice giant instead, like Uranus and Neptune.[citation needed]

History

Important preliminary theoretical work was carried prior to the planetary missions launched starting in the 1970s. In particular, Lewis showed in 1971 that radioactive decay alone was likely sufficient to produce subsurface oceans in large moons, especially if ammonia (NH
3
) were present. Peale and Cassen figured out in 1979 the important role of tidal heating (aka: tidal flexing) on satellite evolution and structure.[3] The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992. Alain Léger et al figured in 2004 that a small number of icy planets that form in the region beyond the snow line can migrate inward to ~1 AU, where the outer layers subsequently melt.[41][42]

The cumulative evidence collected by the

Kepler space observatory, launched on March 7, 2009, has discovered thousands of exoplanets, about 50 of them of Earth-size in or near habitable zones.[44][45]

Planets of almost all masses, sizes, and orbits have been detected, illustrating not only the variable nature of planet formation but also a subsequent migration through the circumstellar disc from the planet's place of origin.[9] As of 1 March 2024, there are 5,640 confirmed exoplanets in 4,155 planetary systems, with 895 systems having more than one planet.[46]

In June 2020, NASA scientists reported that it is likely that exoplanets with oceans may be common in the Milky Way galaxy, based on mathematical modeling studies.[10]

In August 2022, TOI-1452 b, a nearby super-Earth exoplanet with potential deep oceans, was discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.[35]

Formation

Atacama Large Millimeter Array image of HL Tauri, a protoplanetary disk

Planetary objects that form in the outer Solar System begin as a comet-like mixture of roughly half water and half rock by mass, displaying a density lower than that of rocky planets.[42] Icy planets and moons that form near the frost line should contain mostly H
2
O
and silicates. Those that form farther out can acquire ammonia (NH
3
) and methane (CH
4
) as hydrates, together with CO, N
2
, and CO
2
.[47]

Planets that form prior to the dissipation of the gaseous circumstellar disk experience strong torques that can induce rapid inward migration into the habitable zone, especially for planets in the terrestrial mass range.[48][47] Since water is highly soluble in magma, a large fraction of the planet's water content will initially be trapped in the mantle. As the planet cools and the mantle begins to solidify from the bottom up, large amounts of water (between 60% and 99% of the total amount in the mantle) are exsolved to form a steam atmosphere, which may eventually condense to form an ocean.[48] Ocean formation requires differentiation, and a heat source, either radioactive decay, tidal heating, or the early luminosity of the parent body.[3] Unfortunately, the initial conditions following accretion are theoretically incomplete.

Planets that formed in the outer, water-rich regions of a

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 astronomical literature by Marc Kuchner[47] and Alain Léger in 2004.[39]

Eyeball planets (tidally locked water worlds)
Example of a "hot" eyeball planet's spatial features, with a cratered side facing the star and an icy side facing away with seas in between them at the terminator.
Example of a "cold" eyeball planet's spatial features, with an ice shell pierced by an ocean on the side facing the star. It represents a type of water planet between completely frozen and liquid ocean worlds.

Structure

The internal structure of an icy astronomical body is generally deduced from measurements of its bulk density, gravity moments, and shape. Determining the moment of inertia of a body can help assess whether it has undergone differentiation (separation into rock-ice layers) or not. Shape or gravity measurements can in some cases be used to infer the moment of inertia – if the body is in hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e. behaving like a fluid on long timescales). Proving that a body is in hydrostatic equilibrium is extremely difficult, but by using a combination of shape and gravity data, the hydrostatic contributions can be deduced.[3] Specific techniques to detect inner oceans include magnetic induction, geodesy, librations, axial tilt, tidal response, radar sounding, compositional evidence, and surface features.[3]

Artist's cut-away representation of the internal structure of Ganymede, with a liquid water ocean "sandwiched" between two ice layers. Layers drawn to scale.

A generic

pressure at depth, models of a water world may include "steam, liquid, superfluid, high-pressure ices, and plasma phases" of water.[53] Some of the solid-phase water could be in the form of ice VII.[54]

Maintaining a subsurface ocean depends on the rate of internal heating compared with the rate at which heat is removed, and the

freezing point of the liquid.[3]
Ocean survival and tidal heating are thus intimately linked.

Smaller ocean planets would have less dense atmospheres and lower gravity; thus, liquid could evaporate much more easily than on more massive ocean planets. Simulations suggest that planets and satellites of less than one Earth mass could have liquid oceans driven by

cryovolcanism may occur on ocean planets that harbor internal oceans beneath layers of surface ice as it does on the icy moons Enceladus and Europa in our own solar system.[10][11]

Liquid water oceans on extrasolar planets could be significantly deeper than the Earth’s ocean, which has an average depth of 3.7 km.[55] Depending on the planet’s gravity and surface conditions, exoplanet oceans could be up to hundreds of times deeper. For example, a planet with a 300 K surface can possess liquid water oceans with depths from 30–500 km, depending on its mass and composition.[56]

Atmospheric models

Artist depiction of a hycean planet, a large ocean world with a hydrogen atmosphere.

To allow surface water to be liquid for long periods of time, a planet—or moon—must orbit within the

habitable zone (HZ), possess a protective magnetic field,[57][58][9] and have the gravitational pull needed to retain an ample amount of atmospheric pressure.[7] If the planet's gravity cannot sustain that, then all the water will eventually evaporate into outer space. A strong planetary magnetosphere, maintained by internal dynamo action in an electrically conducting fluid layer, is helpful for shielding the upper atmosphere from stellar wind mass loss and retaining water over long geological time scales.[57]

A planet's atmosphere forms from outgassing during planet formation or is gravitationally captured from the surrounding

photolysis of water vapor, and hydrogen/oxygen escape to space can lead to the loss of several Earth oceans of water from planets throughout the habitable zone, regardless of whether the escape is energy-limited or diffusion-limited.[48]
The amount of water lost seems proportional with the planet mass, since the diffusion-limited hydrogen escape flux is proportional to the planet surface gravity.

During a runaway greenhouse effect, water vapor reaches the stratosphere, where it is easily broken down (photolyzed) by ultraviolet radiation (UV). Heating of the upper atmosphere by UV radiation can then drive a hydrodynamic wind that carries the hydrogen (and potentially some of the oxygen) to space, leading to the irreversible loss of a planet's surface water, oxidation of the surface, and possible accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere.[48] The fate of a given planet's atmosphere strongly depends on the extreme ultraviolet flux, the duration of the runaway regime, the initial water content, and the rate at which oxygen is absorbed by the surface.[48] Volatile-rich planets should be more common in the habitable zones of young stars and M-type stars.[47]

Scientists have proposed Hycean planets, ocean planets with a thick atmosphere made mainly of hydrogen. Those planets would have a wide range area around their star where they could orbit and have liquid water. However, those models worked on rather simplistic approaches to the planetary atmosphere. More complex studies showed that hydrogen reacts differently to starlight's wavelengths than heavier elements like nitrogen and oxygen. If such a planet, with an atmospheric pressure 10 to 20 heavier than Earth's, was located at 1 astronomical unit (AU) from their star their water bodies would boil. Those studies now place the habitable zone of such worlds at 3.85 AU, and 1.6 AU if it had a similar atmospheric pressure to Earth.[59]

Composition models

There are challenges in examining an exoplanetary surface and its atmosphere, as cloud coverage influences the atmospheric temperature, structure as well as the observability of

Ice I, depending on their orbit within the HZ and the magnitude of their greenhouse effect. Several other surface and interior processes affect the atmospheric composition, including but not limited to the ocean fraction for dissolution of CO
2
and for atmospheric relative humidity, redox state of the planetary surface and interior, acidity levels of the oceans, planetary albedo, and surface gravity.[9][61]

The atmospheric structure, as well as the resulting HZ limits, depend on the density of a planet's atmosphere, shifting the HZ outward for lower mass and inward for higher mass planets.[60] Theory, as well as computer models suggest that atmospheric composition for water planets in the habitable zone (HZ) should not differ substantially from those of land-ocean planets.[60] For modeling purposes, it is assumed that the initial composition of icy planetesimals that assemble into water planets is similar to that of comets: mostly water (H
2
O
), and some ammonia (NH
3
), and carbon dioxide (CO
2
).[60] An initial composition of ice similar to that of comets leads to an atmospheric model composition of 90% H
2
O
, 5% NH
3
, and 5% CO
2
.[60][62]

Atmospheric models for Kepler-62f show that an atmospheric pressure of between 1.6 bar and 5 bar of CO
2
are needed to warm the surface temperature above freezing, leading to a scaled surface pressure of 0.56–1.32 times Earth's.[60]

Astrobiology

The characteristics of ocean worlds or ocean planets provide clues to their history, and the formation and evolution of the Solar System as a whole. Of additional interest is their potential to form and host life. Life as we know it requires liquid water, a source of energy, and nutrients, and all three key requirements can potentially be satisfied within some of these bodies,[3] that may offer the possibility for sustaining simple biological activity over geological timescales.[3][4] In August 2018, researchers reported that water worlds could support life.[63][64]

An ocean world's habitation by Earth-like life is limited if the planet is completely covered by liquid water at the surface, even more restricted if a pressurized, solid ice layer is located between the global ocean and the lower rocky mantle.[65][66] Simulations of a hypothetical ocean world covered by five Earth oceans' worth of water indicate the water would not contain enough phosphorus and other nutrients for Earth-like oxygen-producing ocean organisms such as plankton to evolve. On Earth, phosphorus is washed into the oceans by rainwater hitting rocks on exposed land, so the mechanism would not work on an ocean world. Simulations of ocean planets with 50 Earth oceans' worth of water indicate the pressure on the sea floor would be so immense that the planet's interior would not sustain plate tectonics to cause volcanism to provide the right chemical environment for terrestrial life.[67]

On the other hand, small bodies such as

organic molecules from comets or tholins, formed by solar ultraviolet irradiation of simple organic compounds such as methane or ethane, often in combination with nitrogen.[68]

Oxygen

Molecular oxygen (O
2
) can be produced by geophysical processes, as well as a byproduct of
photosynthesis by life forms, so although encouraging, O
2
is not a reliable biosignature.[39][48][69][9] In fact, planets with high concentration of O
2
in their atmosphere may be uninhabitable.[48] Abiogenesis in the presence of massive amounts of atmospheric oxygen could be difficult because early organisms relied on the free energy available in redox reactions involving a variety of hydrogen compounds; on an O
2
-rich planet, organisms would have to compete with the oxygen for this free energy.[48]

See also

Astrobiology mission concepts to water worlds in the outer Solar System:

References

  1. ^ Definition of Ocean planet. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  2. ^
    S2CID 6676647
    . A planet with a given mass and radius might have substantial water ice content (a so-called ocean planet), or alternatively a large rocky iron core and some H and/or He.
  3. ^ . Retrieved 2017-10-01.
  4. ^ .
  5. , 9780191653568.
  6. .
  7. ^ a b "Are there oceans on other planets?". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 6 July 2017. Retrieved 2017-10-03.
  8. ^ "Aquifers and Groundwater | U.S. Geological Survey". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
  9. ^
    S2CID 206546351
    .
  10. ^ a b c Shekhtman, Lonnie; et al. (18 June 2020). "Are Planets with Oceans Common in the Galaxy? It's Likely, NASA Scientists Find". NASA. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  11. ^
    S2CID 219964895
    .
  12. ^ .
  13. ^ https://weather.com/en-IN/india/space/news/2023-05-10-four-of-uranus-large-moons-may-be-hosting-oceans-nasa-study
  14. ^ "New Study of Uranus' Large Moons Shows 4 May Hold Water - NASA". 4 May 2023.
  15. ^ a b "Uranus' 4 biggest moons may have buried oceans of salty water". Space.com. 5 May 2023.
  16. ^ a b c d McEwen, Alfred (1 February 2016). "Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW)" (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Institute. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  17. ^ a b c d Creech, Stephen D; Vane, Greg. "Ocean World Exploration and SLS: Enabling the Search for Life". Nasa Technical Reports Server. NASA. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  18. ^ a b c d Anderson, Paul Scott (15 May 2015). "'Ocean Worlds Exploration Program': New Budget Proposal Calls for Missions to Europa, Enceladus, and Titan". AmericaSpace. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  19. ^ a b c d Wenz, John (19 May 2015). "NASA Wants to go Underwater Exploring on Ocean Moons". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  20. ^ a b c d Berger, Eric (19 May 2015). "The House budget for NASA plants the seeds of a program to finally find life in the outer solar system". Chron. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  21. ^ .
  22. ^ Ocean Worlds. JPL, NASA.
  23. ^ Ocean Worlds Exploration Program. NASA
  24. ^ https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-uncover-surprising-activity-on-the-dwarf-planets-eris-and-makemake/
  25. ^ "Water-worlds are common: Exoplanets may contain vast amounts of water". Phys.org. 17 August 2018. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  26. S2CID 4360404
    .
  27. S2CID 8369390. Archived from the original
    on 2019-12-13. Retrieved 2017-10-01.
  28. ^ Water Worlds and Ocean Planets. 2012. Sol Company
  29. S2CID 4360404
    .
  30. .
  31. ^ Rincon, Paul (5 December 2011). "A home from home: Five planets that could host life". BBC News. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  32. ^
    S2CID 119203398
    .
  33. ^ Bourrier, Vincent; de Wit, Julien; Jäger, Mathias (31 August 2017). "Hubble delivers first hints of possible water content of TRAPPIST-1 planets". www.SpaceTelescope.org. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  34. ^ PTI (4 September 2017). "First evidence of water found on TRAPPIST-1 planets – The results suggest that the outer planets of the system might still harbour substantial amounts of water. This includes the three planets within the habitable zone of the star, lending further weight to the possibility that they may indeed be habitable". The Indian Express. Retrieved 4 September 2017.
  35. ^
    S2CID 251538939
    .
  36. .
  37. .
  38. ^ 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.
  39. ^
    S2CID 119101078
    .
  40. .
  41. ^ .
  42. ^ .
  43. .
  44. ^ Overbye, Dennis (May 12, 2013). "Finder of New Worlds". The New York Times. Retrieved May 13, 2014.
  45. ^ Overbye, Dennis (January 6, 2015). "As Ranks of Goldilocks Planets Grow, Astronomers Consider What's Next". The New York Times. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
  46. The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia
    . Retrieved 1 March 2024.
  47. ^
    S2CID 15999168
    .
  48. ^ .
  49. .
  50. .
  51. .
  52. ^ .
  53. ^ Rogers, L.A.; Seager, S. (2010). "Three Possible Origins for the Gas Layer on GJ 1214b". The Astrophysical Journal (abstract). 716 (2): 1208–1216.
    S2CID 15288792
    .
  54. ^ David A. Aguilar (2009-12-16). "Astronomers Find Super-Earth Using Amateur, Off-the-Shelf Technology". Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
  55. .
  56. .
  57. ^ .
  58. .
  59. ^ Paul Sutter (May 2, 2023). "Hycean exoplanets may not be able to support life after all". Space.com. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  60. ^ a b c d e f g Water planets in the habitable zone: Atmospheric chemistry observable features, and the case of Kepler-62e and -62f
  61. .
  62. .
  63. EurekAlert
    . Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  64. .
  65. . Retrieved 2017-10-01.
  66. ^ "Water Worlds and Ocean Planets". Solsation.com. 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  67. PMID 29168837
    .
  68. ^ Sarah Hörst, "What in the world(s) are tholins?", Planetary Society, July 23, 2015. Retrieved 30 Nov 2016.
  69. PMID 26354078
    .

External links