Neptune Sized Exoplanet May Be Covered In Hot-Ice

A Neptune-sized world in a distant solar system orbits very close to its star and might be covered with exotic forms of water not naturally found on Earth, scientists say.

First discovered in 2004, the planet, called GJ 436 b, is about 22 times more massive than Earth. It orbits a diminutive red dwarf star 30 light-years away from us.

The water world could be enveloped by a thin atmosphere of hydrogen and helium, like Neptune and Uranus, or could be surrounded entirely by water, like Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Water on the surface of the planet is a different matter, scientists say. The pressures on GJ 436 b are so great that water would adopt forms not found anywhere on Earth except in laboratories.
In the same way that carbon can transform into diamonds under extreme pressures, water turns into other solid states denser than both liquid and ice under very high pressures. Physicists call these alternative forms of water Ice VII and Ice X.


SOURCE:
Space.com

This is pretty cool, not really unexpected though, since there are bound to be many exotic
planets orbiting other stars.


Comments, Opinions?

So basically the planet is covered in ice, except that it's not ice but water that is solid because of the pressure, pretty cool.