A new study suggests that many more planets may have large amounts of water than previously thought — as much as half water and half rock. The catch? All that water is probably embedded in the rock, rather than flowing as oceans or rivers on the surface.
"It was a surprise to see evidence for so many water worlds orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy," Rafael Luque from the University of Chicago said in a release.
Thanks to better telescope instruments, scientists are finding signs of more and more planets in distant solar systems. Scientists from the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna decided to take a population-level look at a group of planets that are seen around a type of star called an M-dwarf. These stars are the most common stars we see around us in the galaxy, and scientists have catalogued dozens of planets around them so far.
