Thursday, April 25, 2013

New phase of water could dominate the interiors of Uranus and Neptune

New phase of water could dominate the interiors of Uranus and Neptune: One lesser known phase of water is the superionic phase, which is considered an "ice" but exists somewhere between a solid and a liquid: while the oxygen atoms occupy fixed lattice positions as in a solid, the hydrogen atoms migrate through the lattice as in a fluid. Until now, scientists have thought that there was only one phase of superionic ice, but scientists in a new study have discovered a second phase that is more stable than the original.

...the simulations show that a phase transition between the bcc and fcc phases may exist at pressures of 1.0 ± 0.5 Mbar.

...Uranus and Neptune we've just done brief flybys with Voyager 2. What we do know is that they have bizarre non-axisymmetric non-dipolar magnetic fields, totally unlike any other planet in our solar system.

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