New answers tagged terrestrial-planets
9
gerrit's answer has done an excellent job of showing that (1) there are a narrow set of temperatures and pressures where liquid water exists and (2) a planet has to be pretty big to have enough gravity to keep water in the atmosphere. However, I wanted to mention this:
However, the conditions required for liquid water can be extended by mixing it with other ...
15
Do celestial objects need to be big to have liquid water on their surfaces?
Yes.
In a nutshell: liquid surface water needs an atmosphere. To sustain an atmosphere, a planet must be sufficiently massive, therefore sufficiently large. The warmer a planet, the more mass it needs to sustain an atmosphere. A planet warm enough for liquid water must thus also ...
39
Liquid water can't exist in a vacuum. If there is no pressure, then the boiling point will drop to the freezing point and so there will either be ice or water vapour.
And if the world is "small" then its gravity won't hold on to any water vapour, and it will be lost to space. The Earth can have liquid water because its gravity is strong enough to ...
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