On hellish 'lava planets,' the oceans are moving at 220 mph because of supersonic winds, but they’re surprisingly bad at moving heat around.
April 2, 2026
Original Paper
Three-Dimensional Ocean Dynamics and Detectability of Tidally Locked Lava Worlds
arXiv · 2604.00535
The Takeaway
We often think of lava worlds as static, glowing rocks, but this study reveals they have violent 'oceans' driven by atmospheres moving faster than the speed of sound. Despite this speed, the way the 'basins' are shaped prevents the heat from moving to the dark side of the planet.
From the abstract
Tidally locked lava planets are hot, rocky worlds on close-in orbits with a permanent molten dayside. With JWST, their surfaces and atmospheres are beginning to be revealed. This work investigates 3D magma-ocean dynamics, derives scaling laws for the resulting ocean heat transport (OHT), and predicts its detectability. For the first time, the ocean circulation driven by the intense momentum and mass exchanges with the supersonic atmosphere is considered in addition to that by thermal forcing. Th