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.
Our thanks to Research Corporation, a foundation for the advancement of science.
Our thanks to:
Sloane Wiktorowicz
Caltech
and
Andrew Ingersoll
Caltech
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.
Dan, doesn\\\’t the pressure of the gaseous layer matter in a big way here? I think you could compress gas to such a degree that it\\\’s effectively no longer in much motion at a molecular level and is tightly packed enough to be impervious to the passage of liquid water. I\\\’m not an expert, but I think of how hydrogen will turn liquid (and get colder due to the atoms moving about more slowly) if you pressurise it; so far as I know it would eventually turn solid. Anyway, without any of that gobbledegook, I guess it suffices to point out that you can, without very much technology, walk on CO2, and water poured into a bowl of solid CO2 would not run through it to any lower level, gravitationally speaking. So maybe that\\\’s why you would not get the flow of which you speak… the gas might be more of an impervious ultra-dense sludge. Please think of this more as an opportunity for mutual enlightenment than a comment. I think both of us have said or implied that we are not authorities on the subject. Best wishes, Karma
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?
Sam, I agree with the leaving evidence. And I totally agree with “why would there be something so big out htere for nothing” statement.
Sam, I know it\’s a tempting way to look at the world, but I think you are falling into the mistake in how you perceive the world around you that comes almost naturally to people. I\’m speaking of the anthropocentric world view of course. It\’s nice to think that we might leave some tokens of our wisdom for a future race of beings struggling to survive. Also, what do you mean by \’reason\’? Do you mean PURPOSE, like if something exists it must be so because it is part of a higher plan or order of things? Well, think of how this mindset would be received. Any putative race of beings on, say, Europa, would, if told the whole story up to say, today, would see the story of how self-replicating chemicals reached higher and higher levels of complexity and organisation till variegated organisms of fantastic variety in their strategies for self-replication saturated the planet. One species of a particular group of this \’life\’ phenomenon gained self-awareness and ceased to exist in the present alone – both a blessing and a curse. The \’ego\’ mechanism (\”I exist as separate from the world around \’me\’\”) appeared and from there on we, and our invented higher self, were the crown of creation. The whole of existence came to be seen as following this anthropocentric view, and thus we subjugated all life and the earth which bore it to \’Man\’. We extended our increasing obsession with Control till mechanisms, rules, dogmas and unknown higher organisations ran our lives. Eventually the whole planet was under surveillance by paranoid super-organisations who kept everyone occupied with trivia while the final seals were put in place. We ended up fighting to survive with natural rhythms thrown out of kilter, and to the present, Orwell\’s prediction seems to be bearing up. \”You imagine what the future will be like…if you want to know the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.
The big planets exist because they\’re there Sam, \’cos that\’s the way things are. A rainbow only exists for you if you\’re in the right place. The universe and life weren\’t \’created\’ because the conditions were arranged in our favour; the right conditions to bring about WHATEVER would have happened in any case – in this case, life was brought about. You have to try not to look at it ass-backwards.
Just trying to help. Regards.