One way to find water worlds beyond our solar system could be to look for minerals — or more specifically, to study minerals mixed with cool lava on exoplanet surfaces. This is because if water ...

a fresh deposit of liquid lava will trickle through the porous cooled lava, forming as it solidifies the pendant stalactites shown in the accompanying picture, which illustrates Mr. Goldsmith's ...

Another potential hazard is Pele's hair, a volcanic glass formation produced from cooled lava that's stretched into thin ...