Scientists probe the weird, alien water inside of Uranus and Neptune

[Admin]

Researchers are investigating an alien version of water inside the strange, icy interiors of Uranus and Neptune.

Scientists probe the weird, alien water inside of Uranus and Neptune : Read more

 

[Mergatroid]

It's not every day we see an article about scientists probing Uranus.
And they say it might have a frozen core? No wonder I often feel so chilly.....

 

[Hughjer]

Well if there is alien water inside of Uranus, I would like to know how it got there.

 

[rod]

FYI, the paper cited shows the calculations used and the equation of state for the *alien water* 240 Gpa = 3.4809E+07, that is some pressure "The ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, are thought to be composed primarily of H2O4: throughout most of their interior, the large pressure and temperature (e.g., 240 GPa and 5000 K at half the radius of Uranus) favor a super-ionic (SI) phase, where oxygen ions are arranged in a crystalline lattice and protons diffuse freely like in a fluid5,6.", https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17275-5 As the paper stated "More generally, a detailed knowledge of the transport properties of different phases of H2O occurring at high-pT conditions is key to any quantitative evolutionary model of water-rich celestial bodies. In spite of the steady progress in diamond-anvil-cell and shock-wave technologies, the experimental investigation of transport properties of materials at planetary conditions is still challenging."

Yep, the math and EOS is indeed challenging. I like the geeky stuff

 

[rod]

240 Gpa = 3.4809E+07 is 3.4809E+7 psi.

 

[Postman1]

Well if there is alien water inside of Uranus, I would like to know how it got there.

I'm just fine never to know how it got there.....

 

[COLGeek]

A couple of folks here are being a bit too literal...I see what you did there.