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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.”
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft gave humanity its first glimpse of Neptune and its moon, Triton, in the summer of 1989. This image, taken at a range of 4.4 million miles from the planet, shows the Great Dark Spot and its companion bright smudge. These clouds were seen to persist for as long as Voyager’s cameras could resolve them. (Credit: NASA)
SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THEY DISCOVERED THE 'SMOKING GUN' THAT CHANGED URANUS FOREVER
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.”
The experts believe that Uranus could have a "frozen core," which could explain why it is not very luminous.
This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2, which flew closely past the seventh planet from the Sun in January 1986. (Credit: NASA)
In addition, the electrical conductivity found for the superionic phase is far larger than assumed in previous models of magnetic field generation in Uranus and Neptune.
Since superionic water is thought to dominate the dense and sluggish planetary layers below the convective fluid region where their magnetic field is generated, this new evidence could have a major impact on the study of the geometry and evolution of the planets' magnetic fields.
The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
NASA WANTS TO EXPLORE NEPTUNE'S MOON, TRITON, WHICH COULD HAVE AN OCEAN SUPPORTING LIFE
In April 2019, NASA announced that nearly 30 years after it sent a spacecraft to Uranus and Neptune, it's looking to go back.
One month prior, scientists at NASA JPL proposed a mission that would explore Neptune's largest moon, Triton, which some have theorized could have an ocean hidden beneath the surface.
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Uranus and Neptune are relatively unexplored, despite the fact that Voyager 2 snapped photos of both planets in 1986 and 1989.
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