IT’S A TRAP!!!

I take it that’s elemental hydrogen not just the hydrogen part on the water molecules you’re meaning with that last sentence right?

BTW. Good article on GJ1214b here :

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2012/02/the_planet_with_nowhere_to_lan.php

on Ethan Siegel’s Starts With A Bang blog.

(Hope that’s okay to note here netiquette~wise, my apologies & please let me know if not. )

GJ1214b also has a wiki-page already :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GJ1214b

which has a size comparison with this new “waterworld”, Neptune & Earth which makes it seem much more Neptune-y in my view.

Off topic sorry but there’s a good article here :

http://freethoughtblogs.com/zingularity/2012/02/23/the-mysteries-of-titan/

by Stephen “DarkSyde” Andrew on the Zingularity blog about Titan which makes interesting reading. Again hope its okay to mention that here & pleaes let me know & accept my apologies if not.

Even exotic hot ices at high pressures in the deeper layers?

As you go deep into the interior of Uranus and Neptune you end up with weird superionic phases which essentially behave as plasma. There might be a “solid” core at the centre but the bulk of the planet is fluid. Gliese 436b is predicted to behave in a similar way.

Planets which do not have a significant amount of hydrogen would probably end up forming high-pressure ices though.

“Given the 14X earth irradiation and the effectiveness of water vapor as a greenhouse gas, the interior of this world could be quite a bit higher than 230C in reality….” [Quoting #45. amphiox -ed.]
This is what irks me about these temperatures that are quoted regarding exoplanets. If you give someone a temperature value they’ll probably think that it means the number you get if you put a thermometer there. In fact these temperatures represent the energy balance of the planet: you work out how much energy the planet absorbs from the star, assume the planet is a uniform-temperature blackbody and work out how hot this uniform-temperature blackbody would have to be to balance the incoming radiation. This gives a decent approximation of the temperature for planets with no atmosphere (provided you restrict the region of the planet which is re-emitting the radiation to the daylight hemisphere), but once you have an atmosphere you’re going to get wildly different answers.

Very good point & comment.

I think we need to be careful of getting ahead of ourselves on things like temperature unless we have direct measures. We can say that the range is likely to be so & so but saying as certainty that temperaures are X when the calculations could well be wrong is a misleading thing that we’re better off not doing.

@39. Torbjörn Larsson, OM : Thanks for that informative comment on extremophiles too.

@42. andy :

However we know from spacecraft observations of their gravitational fields that they have fluid interiors: the mixing between the various components of the planet prevents the ice from solidifying. This also applies to Gliese 436b which was announced as a “hot ice” planet in the media: it appears to have a composition similar to that of our ice giants but more strongly-irradiated, it likely does not have a solid ice mantle either.

Even exotic hot ices at high pressures in the deeper layers?

Also, is anyone naming these planets? Or is that only reserved for our own solar system? My vote’s for Humidia.

At least when we exchange embassadors there are places here on Earth that they can stay.