Online:
Visits:
Stories:
Profile image
Story Views

Now:
Last Hour:
Last 24 Hours:
Total:

‘Super-Earths’ May Have Stable Oceans That Are Key For Alien Life

Tuesday, January 13, 2015 23:44
% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

(Before It's News)

Discussions concerning all matters of humanity’s ascension into a higher dimensional existence culminating in 2012

Excerpt from
huffingtonpost.com

NASA’s Kepler space telescope celebrated its 1,000th exoplanet discovery earlier this month, an impressive milestone in the search for life on other worlds. 

Now astronomers are homing in on those exoplanets that may have liquid water, which is thought to be essential for supporting life. And according to new research, so-called “super-Earths” may host vast oceans that last for billions of years. 

A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet whose mass is greater than Earth’s but smaller than that of gas giants like Neptune and Uranus.

Earth’s mantle holds vast amounts of water, which returns to to the surface through volcanism. Since this “recycling” process is crucial for maintaining our planet’s oceans, researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astronomy (CfA) wondered if a similar process might occur on super-Earths.

The researchers used computer simulations on various super-Earths to find out how long it would take oceans to form on them, and whether the oceans could be sustained.

What did they find? Super-Earths between two and four times Earth’s mass seem to be even better than Earth at establishing and maintaining oceans. In fact, the water on these planets could last for at least 10 billion years, the research suggested.

The findings were presented in Seattle on Jan. 8 at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. http://ascensionearth2012.blogspot.com



Source: http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2015/01/super-earths-may-have-stable-oceans.html

Report abuse

Comments

Your Comments
Question   Razz  Sad   Evil  Exclaim  Smile  Redface  Biggrin  Surprised  Eek   Confused   Cool  LOL   Mad   Twisted  Rolleyes   Wink  Idea  Arrow  Neutral  Cry   Mr. Green

Top Stories
Recent Stories

Register

Newsletter

Email this story
Email this story

If you really want to ban this commenter, please write down the reason:

If you really want to disable all recommended stories, click on OK button. After that, you will be redirect to your options page.