We didn't know that the Milky Way could be a lot of wet.
A new analysis of exoplanets suggests that we may have missed out on a group of wet planets.
Some of these worlds will not be covered in a global liquid ocean, but they will have hydrated minerals in their water. Our search for life outside the Solar System could be affected by the finding.
It was surprising to see so many water worlds around the most common type of star.
It has consequences for the search for planets that are hospitable to humans.
We can't see a red dwarf, but we can see a lot of stars. Red dwarfs are only about half the mass of the sun.
The Universe is not old enough for a red dwarf star to have lived out its entire lifespan.
Red dwarf stars make up over 70% of the stellar population of the Milky Way. For a moment, have a think about that. Most of the stars in the sky can't be seen in a cool field or on top of a truck in the desert.
It's difficult to find exoplanets in the vicinity of red dwarfs. The majority of the confirmed exoplanets have been found around red dwarf stars.
Scientists have been able to characterization dozens of small worlds around these small stars because of the growing sophistication of our instruments.
Scientists look at two main signals to understand exoplanets. As the exoplanet passes between us and the star, it dims the starlight.
The second is a shortening of the wavelength of light from the star as the exoplanet exerts a pull.
If you know how far away the star is, you can measure the mass and radius of the exoplanet.
The exoplanet's composition can be inferred from this density. An exoplanet with a lot of atmosphere is probably a low density. A rocky world is likely to be a result of a high density.
Luque is an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna.
There are two types of exoplanets: rocky and gassy. There are exoplanets that are too dense to be gassy but not dense enough to be rocky.
The rock composition of these middle-range exoplanets was mixed in with something lighter. These planets are too close to their stars for liquid water to be found on their surfaces.
If their water was on the surface, it would make them bigger in diameter and less dense.
Luque says that the samples don't show that. The water appears to be in the form of a body of water.
Jupiter's moon, which is roughly half rock and half water, has the water hidden beneath a rocky, icy shell. Water is bound up in glass and minerals on the Moon.
The discovery suggests that the worlds could not have formed where they did. They would have had to have formed farther away from their stars from rock and ice.
It's not possible to make a ruling in favor of this model at this point.
Figuring out the composition of planets around red dwarf stars is important for figuring out the complex.
The research has appeared in a journal.
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