“Soot Planets” Might Be More Common Than “Water Worlds”

According to astronomers, water worlds, though admittedly not those containing Kevin Costner, are one of the most common types of planets in our solar system. This is partly due to low density estimates and the abundance of water ice past the “snow line” orbit of a star. But a new paper led by Jie Li and their colleagues at the University of Michigan, suggests there might be an alternative type of planet that fits the density data but is made up of a completely different type of material – soot.