The "hycean" world, theorised a few years ago, has been hard to pin down in practice. It might not even be possible in theory, say the Swiss.
The subNeptunes forming out past the snowline start out with an ocean... of lava. The hydrogen and oxygen react with that. By the time it's cooled enough for a water ocean, that water is an also-ran. The atmosphere left over is itself binding hydrogen into methane and ammonia, oxygen into carbon dioxide. What water be left is illiquid. I think the model would be L 231-32.
Which makes me ponder "water rich" planets found here. Although they're smaller.
No comments:
Post a Comment