A team of researchers discovered a new type of rock salt, which may contribute to solving the mystery of the “red lines” on Jupiter’s moon known as “Europe”, which was discovered by the great scientist Galileo Galilei in the seventeenth century, and it has a group of amazing properties that are not known regarding. Scientists a lot at the moment.
These characteristics include the “red lines” that intersect on the surface of the planet, which scientists believe are a frozen mixture of water and salts, but the composition of these lines remained a mystery, and their chemical signature is mysterious, as it does not match any known substance on the planet.
The team of researchers, led by scientists from the American University of Washington, may have solved the mystery by discovering a new type of solid crystal that forms when water combines with sodium chloride compound (table salt), in cold and high pressure conditions.
The researchers believe that the new material, which they succeeded in creating in the laboratory, might form on the surface and floor of the deep oceans of these worlds.
Scientists announced a new combination of two of the most common substances on Earth, water and sodium chloride, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Sciences.
Baptiste Journeau, associate professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, who is the lead author of the study, says the new findings are startling, pointing out that “it is rare nowadays to have fundamental discoveries in science.”
Everyone knows what salt and water look like in Earth’s conditions, but when it comes to other planets, the moons that orbit them, and space bodies, no one knows how weather and climate conditions can contribute to changing the shape, composition, and chemical signature (spectrum analysis) of those substances.
The researchers say in that study that celestial bodies may contain compounds that are very familiar to us, but in very strange circumstances. High pressures, or low temperatures, can lead to changes in the structure of materials, making them look like a new material in a completely unfamiliar form.
At lower temperatures, water and salts combine to form a hard, salty network of ice, known as a hydrate.
These networks have strong hydrogen bonds, so the only previously known hydrate of sodium chloride was a simple structure containing one salt molecule, an atom of chlorine combined with one atom of sodium, bonded to two molecules of water, which is composed of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms.
“accidental discovery”
In the conditions of Europa, the above is different, as the researchers found two types of hydrates that are completely different from those found on Earth.
The first type contains two sodium chloride molecules for every 17 water molecules, while the other contains one sodium chloride molecule for every 13 water molecules.
This would explain why the chemical signature from the surface of Jupiter’s moons is more “hydrous” than expected.
Giorno explains that the discovery of new types of salt is of great importance, not only for planetary science, but for physical chemistry and even energy research, which uses hydrates to store energy.
In an experiment conducted by scientists on Earth, the researchers pressurized a tiny bit of liquid salt water between two diamonds up to 25,000 times the standard atmospheric pressure. The transparent diamond allowed the team to observe the process through a microscope.
The aim of the experiment was to measure how adding salt changed the amount of ice the researchers might get by freezing, because salt acts as an antifreeze.
But the researchers found that the increase in pressure caused the formation of a new type of salt crystals, similar in appearance to the salt crystals of the planet “Europe”, and that discovery came “by pure chance,” says Jorno.
The pressure brings the molecules closer together, thus changing their interaction and the scientists believe it is the main driver of the diversity in the crystal structures they found.
Once the newly discovered hydrates were formed, one of the two structures remained stable even following the pressure was released, as it remains stable at standard pressures up to regarding minus 50 degrees Celsius.
Scientists believe that this type of crystal may also be present in hypersaline lakes in Antarctica.
The team hopes to make a larger sample to allow for more comprehensive analysis, and to check whether the signatures from the icy moons match the signatures from the newly discovered hydrates.
In the future, two missions, one tracking the European Space Agency (ESA) and the other tracking the US Space Agency (NASA), will explore the icy moons of Jupiter. Another NASA mission will launch to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2026.
The researchers anticipate that providing these tasks with knowledge regarding the chemicals likely to be found there will help them better target their search for signatures of life.
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