The goal of Concepts for Ocean worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech) is to support the development of spacecraft-based technology for surface and subsurface exploration of ocean worlds such as Europa […]
Ocean world
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Density, Not Radius, Separates Rocky And Water-rich Small Planets Orbiting M Dwarf Stars
Exoplanets smaller than Neptune are common around red dwarf stars (M dwarfs), with those that transit their host star constituting the bulk of known temperate worlds amenable for atmospheric characterization. […]
Posted inAstrogeology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Water Worlds Are More Common Than We Thought
Water is the one thing all life on Earth needs, and the cycle of rain to river to ocean to rain is an essential part of what keeps our planet’s […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
TOI-1452 b: An Extrasolar World Covered In Water?
An international team of researchers led by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the Université de Montréal and member of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx), has announced the […]
Posted inIcy Worlds, Mimas, Press Release
Evidence For An Internal Ocean On Mimas
A Southwest Research Institute scientist set out to prove that the tiny, innermost moon of Saturn was a frozen inert satellite and instead discovered compelling evidence that Mimas has a […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Mass-radius Relationships For Irradiated Ocean Planets
Massive and water-rich planets should be ubiquitous in the universe. Many of those worlds are expected to be subject to important irradiation from their host star, and display supercritical water […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Salty Oceans in Low Mass Habitable Planets and Global Climate Evolution
The available models of global climate evolution in habitable earthlike planets do not consider the effect of salt content in oceans, which affects water evaporation. Two distinct categories of such […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Press Release
Irradiated Ocean Planets Bridge Super-Earth And Sub-Neptune Populations
With radii ranging between those of the Earth (1 Rearth) and Neptune (~3.9 Rearth), small planets constitute more than half of the inventory of the 4000-plus exoplanets discovered so far. […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Runaway Climate Cooling Of Ocean Planets In The Habitable Zone
Terrestrial planets covered globally with thick oceans (termed ocean planets) in the habitable zone were previously inferred to have extremely hot climates in most cases. This is because H2O high-pressure […]
Posted inPress Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
A New Desalination Pump Help Define the pH of Ocean Worlds
We study ocean exoplanets, for which the global surface ocean is separated from the rocky interior by a high-pressure ice mantle. We describe a mechanism that can pump salts out […]