Found two exoplanets that are almost entirely water

A team of astronomers has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf

are "water worlds".This means that they are mainly composed of water and are unlike anything else in the solar system. Exoplanets are located in the planetary system at a distance of 218 light years from Earth in the constellation Lyra.

Caroline Piole observed exoplanetsKepler-138c and Kepler-138d using NASA's Hubble Space Telescopes and the already disabled Spitzer. It turned out that the planets, which are about one and a half times the size of the Earth, can consist mainly of water. Previously, they were discovered by the Kepler telescope.

Cross section of the Earth (left) and exoplanet Kepler-138 d(on right). Like Earth, this exoplanet has an interior composed of metals and rocks (brown part), but Kepler-138 d also has a thick layer of high-pressure water in various forms: supercritical and potentially liquid water deep inside the planet and an extended shell water vapor (shades of blue) above it. These layers of water make up more than 50% of its volume. Earth, by comparison, has a negligible proportion of liquid water, with an average ocean depth of less than 4 km. Image Credit & Copyright: Benoit Goujon, University of Montreal.

It is noteworthy that the water was not directly detected,but by comparing the sizes and masses of the planets with the models, scientists have concluded that a significant part of their volume - up to half - must consist of materials that are lighter than stone, but heavier than hydrogen or helium. The most common candidate material is water.

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On the cover: an artist's view of the planet K2-18b and its parent star