Study suggests possible future ocean on Neptune
Voyager 2 captured this image of Neptune in 1989. (NASA)
It’s possible that, in the future the planet Neptune might have its own ocean. Two astronomers at the California Institute of Technology studied this possibility.
Much of Neptune’s interior is made of water, but high pressures keep most of this water as solid ice. Astronomers Sloane Wiktorowicz and Andrew Ingersoll investigated whether an ocean layer might exist inside Neptune’s thick atmosphere. They calculated how much water there might be at different depths in the atmosphere.
According to their calculations, there’s no ocean on Neptune today, no place in Neptune’s atmosphere for water to accumulate. But, they said, an ocean might be in Neptune’s future. According to astronomers, our sun will become a faint white dwarf star some 8 billion years from now. Then Neptune will cool, possibly causing rain to fall from Neptune’s clouds. The rain might create a water layer, or ocean, up in Neptune’s thick atmosphere.
Neptune wasn’t known until the year 1846. The planet’s blue-green color might have helped inspire the name Neptune, for the god of the sea. Now the possibility exists for Neptune to have an ocean of its own … someday.
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i have a question. when the sun begins to expand in its death will it raise the temperature on all the outer solar bodies, like titan for instance.melting ice and causing the ocean to warm up enough to possibly produce life? and how many ,illions of years will it be warm enough to produce this life(if it could?)..mabey we could leave some kind of artifact on say pluto or one of saturns moons to indicate we were here and we could possibly leave some wisdom or help that life along by leaving our recorded history for it to learn from….sorry guys i got caught up in the thought. anyway,how long will this life have to evolve if it in fact(or theory was able to evolve?
I’m not an astrophysicist, but I think the Sun’s red giant phase (or phases) will last about 1-2 billion years? It’s taken us Earthlings around 4 billion years to go from blue-green algae to spaceflight, so I doubt the Titanians would have enough time. Also there will be violent changes in solar output, and huge mass ejections as the Sun throws off its outer layers…life on Titan may be pretty precarious.
I’m puzzled about the Neptunian Ocean. How do you get a body of water resting on, erm, gas? Surely individual raindrops would simply fall through the atmosphere until they reach a layer warm enough for them to evaporate, and then rise again as water vapour? Less an ocean, more a permanent downpour.
If there is a liquid water type substance on Neptune, could there be some type of life on the planet? Also the way mars is simular to earth what is all the other planets are too. Would there be any possible way to live on any of the outer planets. If they are there there must be a reason for them to be out there. But what? I mean why would there be something so big out there for nothing. there is a reason for everything, right?