There's Water on Alien Planets, Just Not As Much as Scientists Thought: Study

Dec 23, 2019
11
7
515
Visit site
"Still, "if you look at Earth, it doesn't have that much water by mass — in fact, Earth is slightly underabundant in water," Madhusudhan said."
Based on what? How have they determined that Earth is "underabundant" in water?
 
Water appears both common and unexpectedly scarce in exoplanets — many distant worlds have it, but less of it than predicted, a new study finds.

There's Water on Alien Planets, Just Not As Much as Scientists Thought: Study : Read more

Interesting report and the exoplanet sizes studied are clearly large where spectra of light passing through their atmospheres allowed some chemicals to be identified. I note this comment in the report "Besides water, the chemicals most often detected in giant exoplanet atmospheres were sodium and potassium. The amounts of sodium and potassium seen in the exoplanets were consistent with expectations given what scientists know about the planets in our solar system. However, water vapor levels were significantly lower than predicted." "That was a big surprise," Madhusudhan said."

Here is an exoplanet database I use as *canonical reference list*, The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia

We know Earth in our solar system has the abundant liquid water supply that allows Earth to sustain a large, biomass on the planet but the 4160 exoplanets, little is known, this report provides some more details.
 
Jan 2, 2020
1
1
15
Visit site
Water appears both common and unexpectedly scarce in exoplanets — many distant worlds have it, but less of it than predicted, a new study finds.

There's Water on Alien Planets, Just Not As Much as Scientists Thought: Study : Read more
The majority of discovered planets are in an inhabitable zone and they must be quite large for us to detect light fluctuations in their Sun/Star. This will all change however when inferred telescope James Web is launched sometime next year, hopefully. Then a more accurate analysis can be determined we we can see many more celestial discs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rod
The majority of discovered planets are in an inhabitable zone and they must be quite large for us to detect light fluctuations in their Sun/Star. This will all change however when inferred telescope James Web is launched sometime next year, hopefully. Then a more accurate analysis can be determined we we can see many more celestial discs.

The JWST will operate in the infrared spectrum and hopefully, will not have issues when deployed at the L2 point as others discussed in the forums like HST did with the mirrors. The Earth's water supply is a thorny problem in models. The giant impact model for the origin of the Moon could lead to a synestia phase of matter for the Earth-Moon system and other models show the Earth is a proto-earth size, perhaps 65 to 90% of present size and mass as well as the newly formed Moon could be a proto-Moon. Much accretion and impact growth must continue with heating too as well as the Faint Young Sun issue with a snow-ball Earth during the Precambrian. It is apparent from Venus and Mars, that if these planets had an abundance of liquid water - it is not there today and our very friendly and breathable atmosphere is an issue too, just like the wonderful water supply we enjoy on Earth. At the moment - exoplanet studies support that Earth is rare :)
 

Latest posts