Pacific Ocean Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. At in area (as defined with an Antarctic southern border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of Earth's land area combined. The centers of
Ocean planet simple biological activity over geological timescales. In August 2018, researchers reported that water worlds could support life. An ocean world's habitation by Earth-like life is limited if the planet is completely covered by liquid water at the surface, even more restricted if a pressurized, solid ice layer is located between the global ocean and the lower rocky mantle. Simulations of a hypothetical ocean world covered by 5 Earth oceans' worth of water indicate the water would not contain enough phosphorus and other nutrients for Earth like oxygen-producing ocean organisms such as plankton to evolve. On Earth, phosphorus is washed into