'Neptune water' soon in labs

Washington, July 22 (ANI): Scientists plan to simulate conditions in lab to show exactly how water behaves in the extreme conditions that Neptune presents.

The new Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research (FAIR) in Germany, which will be ready in 2015, will expose water molecules to heavy ion beams and thereby generate the same level of pressure on the water molecules that they experience within the very inhospitable core of Neptune.

The process will push water molecules into a 'superionic' state and thereby observe water in conditions never before replicated.

The study could explain the magnetic field of Neptune and Uranus, which are very different from that of the Earth's.

The researchers write, "The FAIR accelerator facilities will provide very powerful high quality heavy ion beams with unprecedented intensities.

"The ion beams that will be generated at FAIR will be a very unique and very efficient tool to study High Energy Density Particles in those regions of the parameter space that are not so easy to access with the traditional method."

The study will be published in New Journal of Physics. (ANI)