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Description
More of my astronomical art can be seen in my DA "Paleo & Sci Illustration" gallery:

[link]

I could produce images of exoplanets for the rest of my life and never repeat the same thing. As new discoveries have indicated, there are more types of planets out there than science ever dreamed of.

This image is of a true pair of twin "super-earths". Both are water worlds with the mass of 2.5 earths. They form a close in binary system with a separation at 1/10 that of the Earth and Moon. The tidal forces that each effects upon the other are titanic.

The waves in this picture are the size of mountain ranges on the move. I tried to hint at this by making the white caps higher than the cloud deck. Waves on these worlds are measured in the thousands of meters. The icebergs being carried along are each the size of mountains. The wind velocities are in the hundreds of km per hour.

There is no land emerging from either of these planet wide oceans. The only place where an expedition might land on are the frozen poles. The oceans are hundreds of kilometers deep. The pressures at these depths reach points at which water undergoes bizarre phase changes. Substances such as Ice-7 may exist which sink rather than float in water. Gravitational friction is all that keeps these worlds from freezing solid.

art & text (c) John P. Alexander

Description
More of my astronomical art can be seen in my DA "Paleo & Sci Illustration" gallery:

[link]

I could produce images of exoplanets for the rest of my life and never repeat the same thing. As new discoveries have indicated, there are more types of planets out there than science ever dreamed of.

This image is of a true pair of twin "super-earths". Both are water worlds with the mass of 2.5 earths. They form a close in binary system with a separation at 1/10 that of the Earth and Moon. The tidal forces that each effects upon the other are titanic.

The waves in this picture are the size of mountain ranges on the move. I tried to hint at this by making the white caps higher than the cloud deck. Waves on these worlds are measured in the thousands of meters. The icebergs being carried along are each the size of mountains. The wind velocities are in the hundreds of km per hour.

There is no land emerging from either of these planet wide oceans. The only place where an expedition might land on are the frozen poles. The oceans are hundreds of kilometers deep. The pressures at these depths reach points at which water undergoes bizarre phase changes. Substances such as Ice-7 may exist which sink rather than float in water. Gravitational friction is all that keeps these worlds from freezing solid.

art & text (c) John P. Alexander