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Earth 's surface is dominated by the ocean, which forms 75% of Earth's surface. An ocean world, ocean planet or water world is a type of planet that contains a substantial amount of water in the form of oceans, as part of its hydrosphere, either beneath the surface, as subsurface oceans, or on the surface, potentially submerging all dry land.
The presence of water on the terrestrial planets of the Solar System ( Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the closely related Earth's Moon) varies with each planetary body, with the exact origins remaining unclear. Additionally, the terrestrial dwarf planet Ceres is known to have water ice on its surface.
An ice planet or icy planet is a type of planet with an icy surface of volatiles such as water, ammonia, and methane. Ice planets consist of a global cryosphere . Under a geophysical definition of planet, the small icy worlds of the Solar System qualify as icy planets. These include most of the planetary-mass moons, such as Ganymede, Titan ...
The Snowball Earth is a geohistorical hypothesis that proposes during one or more of Earth 's icehouse climates, the planet's surface became nearly entirely frozen with no liquid oceanic or surface water exposed to the atmosphere.
Astronomers have found water in a disc that could be forming planets ... reveal at least three times as much water as in all of Earth’s oceans in the inner disc of the young Sun-like star HL ...
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times the mass of Earth and slightly more massive, but denser and smaller, than fellow ice giant Uranus.
The total volume of water on Earth is estimated at 1.386 billion km 3 (333 million cubic miles), with 97.5% being salt water and 2.5% being freshwater. Of the freshwater, only 0.3% is in liquid form on the surface. [ 2][ 3][ 4] Because the oceans that cover roughly 70.8% of the area of Earth reflect blue light, Earth appears blue from space ...
Despite the confirmation of extraterrestrial water vapor and ice, however, the spectral signature of liquid water is yet to be confirmed outside of Earth. The signatures of surface water on terrestrial planets may be undetectable through thick atmospheres across the vast distances of space using current technology.