2 "Water-World" Planets Found

“These planets are unlike anything in our solar system. They have endless oceans,” said lead author Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the CfA. “There may be life there, but could it be technology-based like ours? Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy. Nonetheless, these worlds will still be beautiful, blue planets circling an orange star — and maybe life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us.”

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Endless Oceans, in the habitable zone and there may be life ? .... Maybe Kevin Costner is there, lol

Musta been an ET from one of those planets that came down and gave the director the idea for waterworld

Hey, thats a really interesting article.

Thanks for showing that to me....if we survive long enough tera forming should be one of our largest goals.

If we can learn how to shape a viable atmoshere elsewhere we may learn how to heal ours....and have a place to start to dump the stuff thats bad for us and good for plants....

Great post to get rhe grey stuff musing..

Cheers, merry holiday

reply to post by CosmicDude


Pretty cool.

It looks the the water wasn't detected in any way, but instead is suggested by 'modeling.'

According to Wikipedia:
Kepler-62e is a super-Earth exoplanet (extrasolar planet) discovered in orbit around the star Kepler-62, the second outermost of five such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Kepler-62e is located about 1,200 ly (370 pc) from Earth in the constellation of Lyra. The exoplanet was found using the transit method, in which the dimming effect that a planet causes as it crosses in front of its star is measured. Kepler-62e is most likely a terrestrial planet in the inner part of its host star's habitable zone[2] and has an Earth Similarity Index of 0.83.

Given the planet's age (7 ± 4 billion years), stellar flux (1.2 ± 0.2 times Earth's) and radius (1.61 ± 0.05 times Earth's), a rocky (silicate-iron) composition with the addition of a possibly substantial amount of water is considered plausible.[2] A modeling study accepted in The Astrophysical Journal suggests it is likely that a great majority of planets in Kepler-62e's size range are completely covered by ocean.[3][4]


Wiki link to Kepler 62e

reply to post by CosmicDude


Reminds me of the world, 'Cloral' in the Pendragon series. It was a world and civilization built entirely around life on the water. Cities were made out of different kinds of plastics, that would enable them to float like massive barges, and they used the water itself to power all of their technological devices, such as a Skimmer, which is a lot like a jet-ski.

CosmicDude

“These planets are unlike anything in our solar system. They have endless oceans,” said lead author Lisa Kaltenegger of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the CfA. “There may be life there, but could it be technology-based like ours? Life on these worlds would be under water with no easy access to metals, to electricity, or fire for metallurgy. Nonetheless, these worlds will still be beautiful, blue planets circling an orange star — and maybe life’s inventiveness to get to a technology stage will surprise us.”

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Endless Oceans, in the habitable zone and there may be life. Maybe Kevin Costner is there, lol

edit on 23-12-2013 by CosmicDude because: (no reason given)

Having read the paper, they aren't kidding when they say they are different from anything in our solar system.

Imagine a planet which is almost entirely water.

In other words, no crust. as you go deeper and deeper in the ocean you encounter weird ices, Ice 6, Ice 9, etc.

Fascinating places to be sure.

Thanks for the article, very interesting. I love these discoveries, keeps the hope up that definitive proof of life else where in the universe will be found during our life time.

TommyD1966
reply to post by CosmicDude

 

Pretty cool.

It looks the the water wasn't detected in any way, but instead is suggested by 'modeling.'

The planets density is that of water. The wikipedia page you cited is out of date as it says these two planets were mostly solid right atop the page and seems to have last been updated in April.

What we now know is that the density of the planet because these planets mass and radii are known.

It is possible to find if a planet is mostly gas, ice, water, silicate, iron or carbon from looking at its density.

In the cases of these two worlds, they are mostly water. Nothing else would have that specific density.

All of the known potentially habitable planets:

SgtHamsandwich
Thanks for the article, very interesting. I love these discoveries, keeps the hope up that definitive proof of life else where in the universe will be found during our life time.

'

I'd be willing to bet you a dinner of your choice we find it before 2030.

reply to post by JadeStar


Yep, Kepler 62e does look similar to Earth, only bigger

reply to post by CosmicDude


Like the planet Kamino from Star Wars

Awesome post, it sure seems like definitive proof of life in our galaxy could be right around the corner. With every new discovery chances of us being the only life becomes infinitesmally smaller.

reply to post by JadeStar


Thanks JadeStar,

Where did you get the radii and mass numbers?

Edit - duh, #'s are in the link I put above.

What I think I really mean is how is the mass calculated -- specifically that is?

Transit I guess gives you the diameter/radius.

reply to post by JadeStar

Thank you Jadestar for posting all of the known possible habitable planets.

Does anyone kbow if SETI has started searching in the direction of these planets for possible signals?

JadeStar

SgtHamsandwich
Thanks for the article, very interesting. I love these discoveries, keeps the hope up that definitive proof of life else where in the universe will be found during our life time.

'

I'd be willing to bet you a dinner of your choice we find it before 2030.

We basically know they are out there
but slow disclosure may take time 2020

Better call Kevin Costner and Al Gore jk

Interesting post thanks for sharing bro

TommyD1966
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Thanks JadeStar,

Where did you get the radii and mass numbers?

Radii are in my favorite habitable exoplanet catalog:

phl.upr.edu...

The recent paper seems to have nailed down their mass.

Treespeaker
Hey, thats a really interesting article.

Thanks for showing that to me....if we survive long enough tera forming should be one of our largest goals.

If we can learn how to shape a viable atmoshere elsewhere we may learn how to heal ours....and have a place to start to dump the stuff thats bad for us and good for plants....

Great post to get rhe grey stuff musing..

Cheers, merry holiday

We're pretty good at terraforming as it is. We're the masters of it, actually.

We took a beautiful blue oasis that was covered in lush green forests and have turned it into a sterile rather barren concrete machine.

You can't get better than that!!!



I rekon we put a huge mesh around the moon, make it a themed destination, and use it as a holiday resort.

To the moon!!!

inquisitive1977
reply to post by JadeStar

 

Thank you Jadestar for posting all of the known possible habitable planets.

Does anyone kbow if SETI has started searching in the direction of these planets for possible signals?

edit on 23-12-2013 by inquisitive1977 because: (no reason given)

Yes. And YOU CAN HELP!

I actually have done this when I had a hard time going to sleep.

SETILive.org has been searching the Kepler planets for signals since 2011.

Kepler-62 has gotten a lot of attention due to having 2 potentially habitable planets.


SETI Live - We're searching for interesting signals coming from the Kepler Field. Will we find life on another planet?

Join us.

winofiend

Treespeaker
Hey, thats a really interesting article.

Thanks for showing that to me....if we survive long enough tera forming should be one of our largest goals.

If we can learn how to shape a viable atmoshere elsewhere we may learn how to heal ours....and have a place to start to dump the stuff thats bad for us and good for plants....

Great post to get rhe grey stuff musing..

Cheers, merry holiday

We're pretty good at terraforming as it is. We're the masters of it, actually.

We took a beautiful blue oasis that was covered in lush green forests and have turned it into a sterile rather barren concrete machine.

You can't get better than that!!!

Well the ironic thing is if we moved about 20% of the industry responsible for all of that on Earth to Mars we'd have another warm, wet oasis on the Red Planet in about 400 years, thus giving us two habitable worlds in our solar system.