Talk:Ice planet

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Characteristics and habitability

"Many ice planets likely have subsurface oceans, warmed by internal heat or tidal forces from another nearby body." Whoever wrote that appears to be confusing ice planets with ice moons. Excepting cases of double planets / large moons, such bodies would presumably not be subject to much in the way of tidal forces, unlike icy moons orbiting gas giants, unless said planets were orbiting their parent star very closely, which would make it unlikely they would be frozen. Of course, many of them would still likely be warmed by internal heat. Secret Snelk (talk) 09:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Its phrasing can definitely be improved, but there is physically little real distinction between moons and planets. Moons normally have some amount of tidal heating, but planets can also be tidally heated (if they have a sizable moon or if it's a double). And internal heat is typically an important contributor anyway, which becomes more significant if the body is bigger. --JorisvS (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]