• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Thursday, March 4, 2021
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Can super-Earth interior dynamics set the table for habitability?

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
February 9, 2021
in Chemistry
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Are super-Earths capable of creating conditions that are hospitable for life to arise and thrive?

IMAGE

Credit: Image is courtesy of Yingwei Fei. Sandia Z Machine photograph by Randy Montoya, courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories.

Washington, DC– New research led by Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei provides a framework for understanding the interiors of super-Earths–rocky exoplanets between 1.5 and 2 times the size of our home planet–which is a prerequisite to assess their potential for habitability. Planets of this size are among the most abundant in exoplanetary systems. The paper is published in Nature Communications.

“Although observations of an exoplanet’s atmospheric composition will be the first way to search for signatures of life beyond Earth, many aspects of a planet’s surface habitability are influenced by what’s happening beneath the planet’s surface, and that’s where Carnegie researcher’s longstanding expertise in the properties of rocky materials under extreme temperatures and pressures comes in,” explained Earth and Planets Laboratory Director Richard Carlson.

On Earth, the interior dynamics and structure of the silicate mantle and metallic core drive plate tectonics, and generate the geodynamo that powers our magnetic field and shields us from dangerous ionizing particles and cosmic rays. Life as we know it would be impossible without this protection. Similarly, the interior dynamics and structure of super-Earths will shape the surface conditions of the planet.

With exciting discoveries of a diversity of rocky exoplanets in recent decades, are much-more-massive super-Earths capable of creating conditions that are hospitable for life to arise and thrive?

Knowledge of what’s occurring beneath a super-Earth’s surface is crucial for determining whether or not a distant world is capable of hosting life. But the extreme conditions of super-Earth-mass planetary interiors challenge researchers’ ability to probe the material properties of the minerals likely to exist there.

That’s where lab-based mimicry comes in.

For decades, Carnegie researchers have been leaders at recreating the conditions of planetary interiors by putting small samples of material under immense pressures and high temperatures. But sometimes even these techniques reach their limitations.

“In order to build models that allow us to understand the interior dynamics and structure of super-Earths, we need to be able to take data from samples that approximate the conditions that would be found there, which could exceed 14 million times atmospheric pressure,” Fei explained. “However, we kept running up against limitations when it came to creating these conditions in the lab. “

A breakthrough occurred when the team–including Carnegie’s Asmaa Boujibar and Peter Driscoll, along with Christopher Seagle, Joshua Townsend, Chad McCoy, Luke Shulenburger, and Michael Furnish of Sandia National Laboratories–was granted access to the world’s most powerful, magnetically-driven pulsed power machine (Sandia’s Z Pulsed Power Facility) to directly shock a high-density sample of bridgmanite–a high-pressure magnesium silicate that is believed to be predominant in the mantles of rocky planets–in order to expose it to the extreme conditions relevant to the interior of super-Earths.

A series of hypervelocity shockwave experiments on representative super-Earth mantle material provided density and melting temperature measurements that will be fundamental for interpreting the observed masses and radii of super-Earths.

The researchers found that under pressures representative of super-Earth interiors, bridgmanite has a very high melting point, which would have important implications for interior dynamics. Under certain thermal evolutionary scenarios, they say, massive rocky planets might have a thermally driven geodynamo early in their evolution, then lose it for billions of years when cooling slows down. A sustained geodynamo could eventually be re-started by the movement of lighter elements through inner core crystallization.

“The ability to make these measurements is crucial to developing reliable models of the internal structure of super-Earths up to eight times our planet’s mass,” Fei added. “These results will make a profound impact on our ability to interpret observational data.”

###

The project is partially supported by a Carnegie Venture Grant and the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The project is made possible by the Z Fundamental Science Program.

Media Contact
Yingwei Fei
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21170-y

Tags: AstronomyChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesEarth ScienceGeology/SoilGeophysicsGeophysics/GravityPlanets/MoonsPlate TectonicsSpace/Planetary Science
Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

IMAGE

An ultra-degree-of-freedom structured vector beam

March 4, 2021
IMAGE

Protein controlling magnesium identified as therapeutic target for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

March 4, 2021

New microcomb could help discover exoplanets and detect diseases

March 4, 2021

Purdue Research Foundation partners with IdentifySensors Biologics for COVID-19 technology

March 4, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Terahertz accelerates beyond 5G towards 6G

    667 shares
    Share 267 Tweet 167
  • People living with HIV face premature heart disease and barriers to care

    84 shares
    Share 34 Tweet 21
  • Global analysis suggests COVID-19 is seasonal

    38 shares
    Share 15 Tweet 10
  • HIV: an innovative therapeutic breakthrough to optimize the immune system

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Public HealthEcology/EnvironmentcancerInfectious/Emerging DiseasesMaterialsClimate ChangeCell BiologyGeneticsMedicine/HealthChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesTechnology/Engineering/Computer ScienceBiology

Recent Posts

  • An ultra-degree-of-freedom structured vector beam
  • Scientists adapt solar energy technology to detect chemical warfare agents & pesticides
  • Protein controlling magnesium identified as therapeutic target for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
  • Limiting invasive species may be a better goal than eliminating them
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In