Planet ocean

A planet ocean is a hypothetical variety of Planet completely covered with a Océan of Eau a depth of a hundred Kilomètre S.

Initially proposed by David Stevenson of the Californian Institute of technology, this model was deepened by the team of Christophe Sotin of the Université of Nantes.

The discovery these last years of a hundred planets extrasolaires highlighted the existence of hot Jupiter S , of the gas giant too close to their star to have been able to be formed at the place where they are currently located; the planetary process of migration - where a planet approaches star after its formation because of the remainders of the accretion disc - was theorized to explain their presence.

A planet ocean would be a gas giantess of the size of Uranus or Neptune, having a coat of Glace, having migrated close to its star. This migration would involve the cast iron of part of the ice and the formation of an immense liquid ocean. Under such conditions, the pressure at the ocean floor would be sufficient to form a particular variety of ice which would remain at the bottom and would not melt. The consequence of all this would be a planet of a mass 10 times that of the Ground, completely covered with a gigantic ocean of a hundred kilometers of depth, recovering a coat of ice.

The current Telescope S not being sufficiently powerful to allow direct detection such planets, their existence is thus always theoretical.

In fiction

One finds in the fiction several examples of planets ocean.

Manaan, the planet of origin of Selkaths in the video game Star Wars: Knights off the Old Republic .
Kamino, the planet where the army of clones of Star Wars Episode II is created .
Junyo, Holstein, Kurile or Vespus, planets entirely covered with water in the video game Freelancer .
Pond Infinitus, in the cycle of the Cantos d' Hypérion of daN Simmons

See too

Internal bonds

Exoplanète
Giant gas
hot Jupiter
Migration (astronomy)
Planet chtonienne
Gliese 581 C

Reference

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