Scientists have shown that water is likely to be a major component of those exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars) which are between two to four times the size of Earth…
Hopefully atmosphere observations in the future — of thick steam atmospheres — can support or refute the new findings. Goldschmidt Conference
Many of these detected exoplanets are larger than Earth, but it sounds like a lot of that extra mass is water – up to 50% of the planet’s weight, while water on Earth is only 0.02%. Our watery blue world is a desert in comparison.
It makes me wonder… if our Sun had more heavy elements, would Earth be larger? Would it have captured more of the solar system’s water? Would you and I be fish?
We have earlier generations of stars to thank for any watery world including our own. Hydrogen is, of course, everywhere – the most abundant element starting from the Big Bang. But heavier elements owe their existance to fusion within stars and subsequent nova and supernova explosions. That includes oxygen. So water seems to be common in the galaxy.
Kate's Science - Real and Fantastic 
When you think about it, water is the simplest combination of hydrogen (the most common element in the universe) and oxygen (the third most common element in the universe). So it kind of makes sense that we’d find it everywhere. Finding it in a liquid state, though… that’s the tricky part.
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Although, if there are really liquid water oceans under the ice of some of the solar system’s moons, the Goldielock Zone may be bigger than we thoguht…
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That’s true. Also, I know this is a long-shot, but if it turns out Titan can support some form of life, we’ll have to do a lot of rethinking about what the Goldilocks Zone really means.
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There’s a NASA/Ames guy, Christopher P. McKay, who’s written about the possibility of life on Titan. Pretty speculative at this point
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I know that name… is he the one who wrote about a possible organism that breathes hydrogen and eats acetylene?
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I have his paper from Feb 3, 2016… “depletion of hydrogen in the lower atmosphere may be a sign of metabolism.” And “photochemically produced organics in Titan’s atmosphere would produce energy if reacted with atmospheric H2… a source of biological energy” but he also hypothesises a chemistry that could produce H2 as a waste product. There’s a lot on hydrogen bonding too – I shoud really read the whole thing again. It’s in Life 2016, 6, 8
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Yup, that sounds like the same thing I read. It’s a very hypothetical explanation, but very interesting nonetheless.
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🙂
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