Water is the driving force of all nature
this famous quote was conceived inside the mind of one of the most brilliant thinkers in all of
humanity the Leonardo da Vinci may not have truly understood the complexity of the cosmos
he and many other brilliant minds understood that water was paramount for the existence of life
thanks to modern advancements in technology we have been able to pinpoint planets outside of
our solar system that we know for sure contain the substance required for the creation of life
life as we understand it cannot survive without water
so the places where we find these streaks are probably presently habitable
welcome to fact nominal today we will take a deep dive into the super earth Gliese 1214b a planet
many have dubbed the water world the ingredients for life ever since the theoretical discovery in
the 1970s that confirmed that there was a high possibility of liquid water in planets outside
of our solar system our species has sought to find the possibility of life somewhere out there
although the surface of a planet may be covered in water ice it is possible that the radioactive
decay inside its core may allow for liquid water deeper in the planet strata and though
our understanding of the mechanism at play in the universe has exponentially grown since the 1970s
there is still the one true question left to answer are we truly alone in the vast universe
or communicate with them so the question i have is are we alone are there other
intelligent life forms in the universe given the size of the galaxies and size of the space
how could we not feel how could we possibly be alone there has to be many many out there
so i guess the real question is should we try to search out and communicate with these species
we now understand that simply containing liquid water is not enough for life to develop from
the raw and abundant elements that make up the foundation of life if an exoplanet were to form
life we need the presence of liquid water and it must orbit somewhere in the goldilocks zones
this is a very specific range of distance that a planet must be from its host star
in order to have the perfect conditions for life to emerge since the solar system is in thermal
equilibrium there's a well-defined distance away from a star where the temperature would be such
that liquid water can exist all the way from just below boiling point on the one hand to just above
freezing point in the other hand while we have found dozens of planets out that perfectly fit
this description one of the strangest we've ever discovered is the infamous Gliese 1214b
a super earth Gliese 1214b was discovered in 2009 by Canadian astronomer David Charbonneau
and his team in the me earth project it is located inside the Ophiuchus constellation
named after the greek expression for "snake holder" it's roughly 42 light years away from
our sun and according to nasa has the size of 8.17 earths the astronomers running the project
noticed that the star Gliese 1214b appeared to show drops in brightness they then observed the
star more closely and confirmed that it dimmed by roughly 1.5 every 1.58 days follow-up radial
velocity measurements were then made with the harp spectrograph on the eso's 3.6 meter telescope at
la sija chile those measurements succeeded in providing independent evidence for the existence
of this water world six times as massive as earth Gliese 1214b is less than three times
as wide falling between the earth and the solar system's ice giants Uranus and Neptune in size
though we know that there are other planets out there with vast seas there are some
unique features that make Gliese 1214b stand out from its aquatic counterparts for one
this exoplanet is primarily composed of water unlike earth whose water composition is a mere
0.025 percent of its mass Gliese 1214b has an unprecedented water composition of 10 percent
and through further studies many experts have concluded that the planet is roughly 75
water and ice and only 25 rock it is hard to tell exactly how much water ice and vapor this planet
is composed of because the atmosphere is very similar to its surface unlike terrestrial planets
Gliese 1214b does not have a solid surface making the height of the atmosphere difficult to define
instead atmospheric scientists introduced a concept called the scale height which determines
the height of the atmosphere by changes in the increase or decrease of atmospheric pressure
on earth the scale height is about 6 miles or 10 kilometers for comparison Gliese 1214b is
three times deeper according to Norio Narita of the national astronomical observatory in japan
a study was published showing the spectrum to be largely featureless over the wavelength range
of 750 to 1000 nanometers because a thick and cloud-free hydrogen atmosphere would have produced
detectable spectral features such an atmosphere appears to be ruled out although no clear signs
were observed of water vapor the authors of the study believe that gaseous water is the primary
component of this planet's atmosphere but further observations are necessary to make a definite
conclusion narito also concluded that life on this planet may be impossible because of the
proximity to its star Gliese 1214 this host's star is quite average all things considered in fact it
has only 20 percent of the diameter of our sun roughly 15.7 percent of its mass and it's over
300 times dimmer but what has caught astronomers attention is the celestial dance between the two
dancing with the star another interesting fact about Gliese 1214b is its rather unorthodox
orbit the orbit eccentricity is relatively high compared to earth meaning the point in
the orbit that it's closest to its star known as perihelion is about twice as close than when it's
at its furthest point or aphelion this cosmic tango takes Gliese 1214b roughly 36 hours to
complete one orbit around its host star though star Gliese is much smaller than our sun the
fact that planet Gliese 1214bis orbiting it so close means that its surface is scorching hot
it is comparable to the surface of Venus which can reach a whopping temperature of 393 kelvin
or 248 degrees Fahrenheit though its outer layers may be a mystery at this point what is even more
baffling to veteran astronomers all over the world is the mechanisms in its inner layers
the distance from the surface of this planet to the seabed is estimated to be somewhere around
9 300 miles or 15 000 kilometers for perspective the deepest part of our ocean is in the Mariana
Trench located approximately 124 miles east of the Mariana islands in the pacific ocean
it is a mere 7 miles in depth or around 11 kilometers this means that Gliese 1214b is
nearly 145 times deeper than our deepest ocean on earth hang with me it gets even
crazier not only does the pressure skyrocket as you go deeper towards Gliese 1214b's core
but the atmosphere also produces a strange ice one you wouldn't find at your local grocery store
this type of ice is so dense and cold that scientists have an entirely new label for it
and unlike conventional ice it is a crystalline form of water that exists under immense pressure
of over 30 000 atmospheres in fact the pressure is so high in this water world that the liquid
water itself is not the usual h2o you're used to seeing it is so thick heavy and hot that it
is classified as plasma water the weather on this planet appears to be extreme due to the proximity
to its host star and the incredible atmospheric pressure in the many layers of Gliese 1214b
scientists believe that there is a perpetual storm raging on its surface with the liquid water
boiling the vapor created is highly pressurized which create huge storms like the one we have
never seen on earth with the insane amount of pressure on this planet it is safe to say that
unless our technology takes a giant leap we won't be able to surf this strange sea below the surface
the core of the planet is also quite interesting because it seems to be surrounded by a cryosphere
just outside the inner layer though it's not one hundred percent completely understood
scientists believe that the fact that ice so heavy 650 kilos per cubic meter to be precise
that it settles at the bottom of the ocean and though the temperatures are extreme near
the center of the planet ice is unable to melt because of its unprecedented pressure
when this water planet was first discovered there was speculation that perhaps there was a slight
possibility of life somewhere within its layers but experts as of late have come to terms with
the fact that the intense atmospheric conditions coupled with a lack of diverse life-building
elements make it highly unlikely that there is was or ever will be life on Gliese 1214b thank
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