By Chris Ciaccia for Fox News
Computer model will examine “thermal and electric processes” on the planets
While NASA proposes a mission to Neptune’s moon, Triton, which could have an ocean capable of supporting life, researchers believe Neptune and Uranus are composed “primarily” of a strange form of water.
Scientists have developed a computer model to examine “thermal and electric processes occurring at physical conditions” on the giant ice planets.
In the model, the researchers looked at the conduction of electricity and heat of water “under extreme temperature and pressure conditions,” with implications for both planets, as well as other exoplanets outside the solar system.
“Hydrogen and oxygen are the most common elements in the Universe, together with helium. It is easy to deduce that water is one of the major constituents of many celestial bodies,” Federico Grasselli and Stefano Baroni, two of the researchers, said in a statement. “Ganymede and Europe, satellites of Jupiter, and Enceladus, satellite of Saturn, present icy surfaces beneath which oceans of water lie. Neptune and Uranus are also probably composed primarily of water.”
The researchers — with the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy and UCLA — looked at the three possible phases of water that could exist on the planets — ice, liquid and superionic, and noted that the findings should give scientists new ideas on what to look for.
“In such exotic physical conditions, we cannot think of ice as we are used to. Even water is actually different, denser, with several molecules dissociated into positive and negative ions, thus carrying an electrical charge,” the researchers said.
“Superionic water lies somewhere between the liquid and solid phases: the oxygen atoms of the H2O molecule are organized in a crystalline lattice, while hydrogen atoms diffuse freely like in a charged fluid.” Read more from Fox News.
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