Astronomers have been searching for new planets outside our Solar System for some time now, and so far, discoveries have ranged from giant gaseous worlds to arid rocks with no atmosphere. However, amidst all this vastness of possibilities, a recent discovery has caught our attention: a planet with somewhat peculiar physical and orbital characteristics, we’re talking about a water world, which appears to be 30% made of oceans.
There is a strange phenomenon happening on this planet
This discovery all happened when a group of astronomers from the University of Montreal, with support from NASA, began to investigate the Draco constellation. It was then that they discovered a planet just 100 light-years from Earth, orbiting a red dwarf star. At first, it seemed like just another “super-Earth” among many others, until we were all surprised by so many oceans in front of it.
And another thing that caught the attention of scientists even more was not only the planet itself, but its unusual orbit and its environmental conditions. This is because it completes an orbit around its star in just 11 Earth days, which would normally indicate a surface temperature too high to sustain water in a liquid state. However, apparently, this is not the case.
But don’t worry, there is an explanation for this phenomenon. It happens because of the type of star that the planet orbits: a red dwarf. However, it is significantly smaller and cooler than our Sun. In other words, even though it is so close to its star, the planet receives a level of radiation and heat similar to that which Venus receives from the Sun.
Why call the mass in the Draco constellation a water world?
And this planet already has a name, you see? It was named TOI-1452 b. Moving on to other details, it is about 70% larger in diameter than Earth and has five times its mass. It is worth noting that these characteristics alone would classify it as a “super-Earth”, which is nothing more than a type of rocky planet larger than ours, but still smaller than the gas giants. However, it ends up differentiating itself from the others due to its low relative density.
When scientists stopped to analyze the mass and volume of the water world, they ended up realizing that it could not be composed only of rock and metal, like Earth. And that is where the biggest difference lies with this planet: its lower density ends up indicating a significant fraction of lighter materials. And the most accepted computer models point to a single candidate: water.
To delve even deeper into the planet’s peculiarities, a team from the University of Montreal conducted some simulations that indicated that up to 30% of the planet’s total mass could be composed of water. This water would be in the form of a deep ocean (but not like those found on Mars) or even underground layers of liquid beneath thick ice, much like the moons Ganymede and Enceladus in our solar system.
It looks like James Webb has a new mission
Of course, experts didn’t stop at this discovery. Since this water planet is located in the constellation Draco, which is an area of the sky visible almost all year round by the James Webb Space Telescope, we expect to investigate the planet’s atmospheric composition with unprecedented precision.
The famous JWST is capable of capturing the spectrum of light from the star as it passes through the planet’s atmosphere. This technique allows scientists to determine which gases are present and whether there are signs of water vapor, hydrogen, helium, or even biosignatures. Yes, yet another mission for the James Webb, a telescope that has just made a historic discovery in the Milky Way.
