NASA’s Telescope Discovers a Planet with a Boiling Ocean

Through NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have detected water vapor and chemical signatures of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet named TOI-270 d. According to researchers from the University of Cambridge, this chemical mix is consistent with a world where an ocean covers the entire surface, and the air is rich in hydrogen.

TOI-270 d, as reported by The Guardian, is twice the size of Earth and approximately 70 light-years away from us. Professor Nikku Madhusudhan, one of the study’s participants, stated that the ocean on this planet could reach temperatures of 100 degrees Celsius or higher.

At high atmospheric pressure, a hot ocean at this temperature could remain in liquid form, but whether it can sustain life is uncertain. Madhusudhan suggests that this could be a “hycean” world with an ocean beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.

TOI-270 d is a tidally locked planet, meaning it has no day and night, only freezing darkness on one side and continuous scorching sunlight on the other, creating extreme temperature contrasts.

“The ocean will be extremely hot on the sunlit side. On the perpetual nightside, it may have conditions suitable for life,” explained Madhusudhan.

However, this planet has a suffocating atmosphere with pressure tens or hundreds of times greater than Earth and water vapor rising from the ocean. The ocean on TOI-270 d could have depths ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers, with a high-pressure ice seabed and a rocky core underneath.

This explanation is supported by a paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysical Letters.

Nevertheless, Professor Björn Benneke from the University of Montreal has provided additional observations on TOI-270 d. He believes that the planet is too hot to maintain liquid water and instead suggests a rocky surface covered by a dense atmosphere consisting of hydrogen and water vapor.

Despite these different interpretations, both the research groups in the UK and Canada have discovered carbon disulphide, a compound related to biological processes on Earth, on TOI-270 d.

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