Much of the cosmos remains a mystery to this day, and as we learn more about our universe, the stranger it becomes. A study last month in the Astrophysical Journal Letters reports that some planets have water in an exotic state between liquid and gas.
Listen beautiful relax classics on our Youtube channel.
Olivier Mousis, a planetary scientist at Aix-Marseille University in France, and colleagues ran simulations of ocean-covered worlds in close orbits around their stars, where mini-Neptunes are often found. Intense stellar radiation would cause water on the planets to puff up into a diffuse layer of “supercritical” water between liquid and gas, topped by a steamy water vapor atmosphere, the team found. On Earth, supercritical water can be used to break down toxic waste.
Such extreme [sauna-like] worlds could bridge the divide between rocky and gaseous planet types…
(Image Credit: NASA / JPL / Voyager-ISS / Justin Cowart/ Wikimedia Commons)
Source: neatorama