This artist rendering may show a water world — without any land — or an aquaplanet with lots of more shallow water around a rocky planet. (NASA)

The more exoplanet scientists learn about the billions and billions of celestial bodies out there, the more the question of unusual planets — those with characteristics quite different from those in our solar system — has come into play.

Hot Jupiters, super-Earths, planets orbiting much smaller red dwarf stars — they are all grist for the exoplanet mill, for scientists trying to understand the planetary world that has exploded with possibilities and puzzles over the past two decades.

Another important category of planets unlike those we know are the loosely called “water worlds” (with very deep oceans) and their “aquaplanet” cousins (with a covering of water and continents) but orbiting stars very much unlike our sun.

Two recent papers address the central question of habitability in terms of these kind of planets — one with oceans and ice hundreds of miles deep, and one particular and compelling planet (Proxima Centauri b, the exoplanet closest to us) hypothesized to have water on its surface as it orbits a red dwarf star.

The question the papers address is whether these watery worlds might be habitable.  The conclusions are based on modelling rather than observations, and they are both compelling and surprising.

In both cases — a planet with liquid H₂0 and ice many miles down, and another that probably faces its red dwarf sun all or most of the time — the answers from modelers is that yes, the planets could be habitable.   That is very different from saying they are or even might be inhabited.  Rather,  the conclusions are based on computer models that take into account myriad conditions and come out with simulations about what kind of planets they might be.

This finding of potential watery-world habitability is no small matter because predictions of how planets form point to an abundance of water and ice in the planetesimals that grow into planets.

As described by Eric Ford, co-author of one of the papers and a professor of astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, “Many scientists anticipate that planets with oceans much deeper than Earths could be a common outcome of planet formation. Indeed, one of the puzzling properties of Earth is that it has oceans that are just skin deep” compared to the radius of the planet.… Read more