When a planet is born from a moving pocket of molecular gas and dust that surrounds a young star, it is formed under acute gravity and pressure conditions. This process is violent, the first stages of a planet’s life are chaotic, and the newborn world is often scorched.
Scientists have long assumed that, in these extreme conditions, the raw materials involved in the formation of the world – gas, ice, rock and a mixture of metals – do not actually interact with each other. However, it may be time to see this idea again. A team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Princeton have questioned the notion, thinking that if a planet beyond our solar system – an exoplanet – can serve as a natural laboratory, in which molecules interact in a surprising manner within the heat of their atmosphere and core.
“Standard models of planets believe that these building blocks do not interact with each other,” said Larsud, a professor at UCLA. “So many new planets are being discovered, especially the possibility of those who are in the thick hydrogen atmosphere around the melted interiors of water, rock, or both – we questioned whether this perception actually keeps, especially the extreme positions inside the planets are possible where our understanding of the physical is not well established.”
The growth of water-rich planets has been widely studied, although usually under the notion: that their hydrogen-rich atmosphere does not interact with their interiors rich in water. But Stics and his co-authors, Akash Gupta and the hill shinging, suggests that there may be a unique dynamic deep effect between water and hydrogen that we are missing in our model of planetary development.
To find out how a system made of hydrogen and water can interact. If it is present in another world, the team conducted a computer-based simulation that models the dynamics of molecules at a quantum level.
“Think of our computational experiments in the form of a small digital lab, where we keep hundreds of hydrogen and water molecules in a box,” a UCLA doctoral student Gupta and now a postdorel Fellow at Princeton University at the time of study, told Space.com.
“We then rule the quantum mechanics of how these molecules behave under various pressures and temperatures, similar to the positions inside the planets,” they continued. “This process helps us to tell us which planets are different and separate and to what extent are different.”
Researchers identify a “important curve” in relation to the pressure of hydrogen-water mixture-a limit where hydrogen and water infection is completely mixed to separate two different stages in a fluid.
Gupta said, “When the planets are young or warm, their inner parts can be on the warm side of this (pressure -paint) curve, which tells us that hydrogen and water will be mixed completely in them,” Gupta said. “As soon as they are cold as age, their interiors may eventually fall to the cooler side of this curve and water and then hydrogen will start to separate.”
Perhaps the most interesting part of simulation is that the team predicts that as the planet is cold and the water is different, the planet will experience a planet-wide “rain” because it sinks deeply in the atmosphere. A professor of UCLA, Space.com said, “After this it can change the structure of the planet’s atmosphere: a hydrogen-rich environment and the emergence of a water-rich interior, in addition to being implications for the planet’s energy budget,” Spact.com said.
If the planet cools sufficiently and hydrogen and water disappear quickly in its growth, then Gupta says that a supercruitical layer of water can be formed under the hydrogen environment – how the planets can be present with liquid water oceans.
These findings can also help solve a long-term mystery around Neptune and Uranus’s off-kilter magnetic fields. “The magnetic fields in the planets arise from the flow of deep conductive materials in the planets,” Gupta said. “At high pressure and temperature, as Uranus and Neptune, hydrogen and water can become atoms and metals, ie good electric conductors.”
“This mixture itself (…) can explain the deep magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, opposite to any other planetary body in our solar system,” they continued. “Earlier, these magnetic areas are attributed to only pure layers of water or ice, as physics has been largely unexplained behind hydrogen-water interaction.”
Such studies provide an incredibly valuable platform to discover the boundaries of physics and chemistry as we know them. The core of the planets provides a unique setting to fly into these areas, challenging our current understanding and potentially reveal new principles that can reopen them.
“We often believe that physics and chemistry are fully understood, but when we dive in deep conditions inside the planets – then the temperature is hot enough to melt more than millions to millions and melting the rock – we quickly feel that how far you know,” Gupta said. “This is especially true in the emerging field of exoplanets, where it is necessary to achieve insights from astronomy physics, planetary science, geo science and chemistry if we really want to understand the incredibly complex systems (K) planets and their atmosphere.”
The team says that they plan to expand their molecular simulation to include rock-and ice-making molecules, to understand how they can coexist and interaction with a planet’s hydrogen-based environment, its interior and other gases, such as helium, which may be present.
“These new insights at the intersection of chemistry and physics are thus helping us detect unwanted areas,” skilling concludes. “Every new result can reopen our space, their habit and our place in this universe.”
