. 24/7 Space News .
JOVIAN DREAMS
Jupiter on a bench
by Staff Writers
Boston MA (SPX) Jul 06, 2016


Harvard researchers observed evidence of the transition of hydrogen to metallic hydrogen by squeezing a sample of liquid hydrogen between two diamond tips. Image courtesy of Mohamed Zaghoo/Harvard SEAS. For a larger version of this image please go here.

In less than a week, the spacecraft Juno will arrive at Jupiter, the culmination of a five-year, billion-dollar journey. It's mission: to peer deep inside the gas giant and unravel its origin and evolution. One of the biggest mysteries surrounding Jupiter is how it generates its powerful magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system.

One theory is that about halfway to Jupiter's core, the pressures and temperatures become so intense that the hydrogen that makes up 90 percent of the planet - molecular gas on Earth - looses hold of its electrons and begins behaving like a liquid metal. Oceans of liquid metallic hydrogen surrounding Jupiter's core would explain its powerful magnetic field.

But how and when does this transition from gas to liquid metal occur? How does it behave? Researchers hope that Juno will shed some light on this exotic state of hydrogen - but one doesn't need to travel all the way to Jupiter to study it.

Four hundred million miles away, in a small, windowless room in the basement of Lyman Laboratory on Oxford Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there was, for a fraction of a fraction of a second, a small piece of Jupiter.

Earlier this year, in an experiment about five-feet long, Harvard University researchers say they observed evidence of the abrupt transition of hydrogen from liquid insulator to liquid metal. It is one of the first times such a transition has ever been observed in any experiment.

They published their research in Physical Review B.

"This is planetary science on the bench," said Mohamed Zaghoo, the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). "The question of how hydrogen transitions into a metallic state - whether that is an abrupt transition or not - has huge implications for planetary science. How hydrogen transitions inside Jupiter, for example, says a lot about the evolution, the temperature and the structure of these gas giants interiors."

In the experiment, Zaghoo, Ashkan Salamat, and senior author Isaac Silvera, the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, recreated the extreme pressures and temperatures of Jupiter by squeezing a sample of hydrogen between two diamond tips, about 100 microns wide, and firing short bursts of lasers of increasing intensity to raise the temperature.

This experimental setup is significantly smaller and cheaper than other current techniques to generate metallic hydrogen, most of which rely on huge guns or lasers that generate shock waves to heat and pressurize hydrogen.

The transition of the liquid to metallic hydrogen happens too quickly for human eyes to observe and the sample lasts only a fraction of a second before it deteriorates. So, instead of watching the sample itself for evidence of the transition, the team watched lasers pointed at the sample. When the phase transition occurred, the lasers abruptly reflected.

"At some point, the hydrogen abruptly transitioned from an insulating, transparent state, like glass, to a shiny metallic state that reflected light, like copper, gold or any other metal," Zaghoo said. "Because this experiment, unlike shock wave experiments, isn't destructive, we could run the experiment continuously, doing measurements and monitoring for weeks and months to learn about the transition."

"This is the simplest and most fundamental atomic system, yet modern theory has large variances in predictions for the transition pressure," Silvera said. "Our observation serves as a crucial guide to modern theory."

The results represent a culmination of decades of research by the Silvera group. The data collected could begin to answer some of the fundamental questions about the origins of solar systems.

Metallic hydrogen also has important ramifications here on Earth, especially in energy and materials science.

"A lot of people are talking about the hydrogen economy because hydrogen is combustibly clean and it's very abundant," said Zaghoo. "If you can compress hydrogen into high density, it has a lot of energy compacted into it."

"As a rocket fuel, metallic hydrogen would revolutionize rocketry as propellant an order of magnitude more powerful than any known chemical," said Silvera. "This could cut down the time it takes to get to Mars from nine months to about two months, transforming prospects of human space endeavors."

Metallic hydrogen could be used to make room temperature or even higher than room temperature super-conductors.

The Juno mission goes hand-in-hand with laboratory experiments into metallic hydrogen, Zaghoo said.

"The measurements of Jupiter's magnetic field that Juno will be collecting is directly related to our data," he said. "We're not in competition with NASA but, in some ways, we got to Jupiter first."


Thanks for being here;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly


paypal only


.


Related Links
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Jupiter and its Moons
Explore The Ring World of Saturn and her moons
The million outer planets of a star called Sol
News Flash at Mercury






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

Previous Report
JOVIAN DREAMS
What is the goal of Juno's mission to Jupiter?
Miami (AFP) July 5, 2016
NASA's Juno spacecraft on Tuesday began circling Jupiter on a 20-month mission to learn more about the origin of the solar system's most massive planet. The arrival was a triumph for the $1.1 billion project to get closer to Jupiter, a mysterious "planet on steroids" where everything is extreme, the atmosphere is poisonous and the radiation is 1,000 times the lethal limit for a human, accord ... read more


JOVIAN DREAMS
Russia to spend $60M in 2016-2018 to fund space voyages to Moon, Mars

Russian Moon Base to Hold Up to 12 People

US may approve private venture moon mission: report

Fifty Years of Moon Dust

JOVIAN DREAMS
Curiosity Mars Rover Enters Precautionary Safe Mode

Scientists' Innovation Began With 'Wanting to Understand Why'

Opportunity finishing science investigations at the center of Marathon Valley

Moons of Mars probably formed by giant impact

JOVIAN DREAMS
Exploring inner space for outer space

Quantum technologies to revolutionize 21st century

Blue Origin has fourth successful rocket booster landing

TED Talks aim for wider global reach

JOVIAN DREAMS
China to launch its largest carrier rocket later this year

China committed to peaceful use of outer space

China to launch second space lab Tiangong-2 in September

Upgraded "space shuttle bus" aboard new carrier rocket

JOVIAN DREAMS
Three astronauts blast off for ISS in upgraded Soyuz craft

Soyuz-FG to launch new crew to ISS fully assembled

Down to Earth: Returned astronaut relishes little things

NASA Ignites Fire Experiment Aboard Space Cargo Ship

JOVIAN DREAMS
Russia to Continue Rocket Engine Supplies to US Under Existing Contracts

India launches 20 satellites in single mission

LSU Chemistry Experiment Aboard Historic Suborbital Space Flight

Spaceflight contracts India's PSLV to launch 12 Planet Dove nanosats

JOVIAN DREAMS
Lush Venus? Searing Earth? It could have happened

Teenagers at Keele University Discover Possible New Exoplanet

A surprising planet with three suns

What Happens When You Steam a Planet

JOVIAN DREAMS
A little impurity makes nanolasers shine

Russian Scientists Propose Charging Satellites Using Land-Based Lasers

Penn chemists establish fundamentals of ferroelectric materials

New mid-infrared laser system could detect atmospheric chemicals









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.