Hubble and Spitzer have identified two planets which seem to be water worlds, with oceans which are 500 times deeper than those on Earth.
While we have discovered over 5,000 exoplanets to date, most of the information we have about these planets is fairly basic. Researchers typically know about a planet’s mass or radius and its distance from its host star, but little more than that, making it hard to predict what these worlds are actually like. However, new tools and techniques are allowing researchers to learn more about details like a planet’s density, allowing a better understanding of what these places are like.
The planets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 d were first identified by the Kepler Space Telescope in 2014, but it wasn’t until recently that data from Hubble and Spitzer was used to reveal their density. Research shows that up to half of the planets’ volume could be made up of water, raising questions about planets of this size and type.
To picture what these watery worlds are like, experts say we should not be thinking about any of the planets in our solar system but rather some of the moons. “Imagine larger versions of Europa or Enceladus, the water-rich moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn, but brought much closer to their star,” said lead author Caroline Piaulet of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets. “Instead of an icy surface, they would harbor large water-vapor envelopes.
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