(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the University of Cambridge conducted a large-scale study and found that hot ocean planets are an excellent place to search for extraterrestrial life.
Of course, people cannot survive in such worlds, but some organisms, which, by the way, are found in the depths of the Earth‘s oceans, can be very comfortable there.
Such hot oceanic planets were isolated from the rest of the exoplanets in a special class, which received the beautiful name Hycean.
Features of exoplanets of the Hycean class:
- The radius is about 2.6 times the radius of the Earth
- The mass is about 10 times the mass of the Earth
- The surface may be 100% covered by liquid water , forming a deep global ocean
- The atmosphere is mostly hydrogen
- The temperature on the “surface” can reach 200 degrees Celsius
Whoa! If the temperature is 200 degrees, then why don’t the oceans evaporate?
Everything is very simple: the atmospheric pressure in such worlds can be 20-25 times higher than on Earth, which means that the boiling point of water will be from 211 to 223 degrees.
The Hycean oceans can experience conditions that are much milder than those in the Mariana Trench, where a variety of life is known to thrive.
If life is found in such a world (Hycean), it will change our understanding of life in the universe.
Prior to this study, worlds that were as similar as possible to Earth were recognized as potentially habitable exoplanets, but now, with the advent of the Hycean class, the zone of search for extraterrestrial life will expand significantly.
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