Blog Post Image: Exoplanet study finds ‘super-Earths’ likely have oceans and continents

The Milky Way is home to numerous massive terrestrial planets (super-Earths). A new study by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago challenges conventional wisdom that these planets are probably covered completely in water. Shown here is an artist’s conception of Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone (where liquid water could persist) of a sun-like star. The planet is nearly 2.4 times the size of Earth. Image courtesy of NASA/Ames/Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech