Remember last week, we talked about lab experiments done using a diamond anvil that led to the discovery that Uranus and Neptune could have a magnesium-rich water layer in their mix? Well, I found out that there was other research done using a diamond anvil that tried to solve the mystery of the ice giants’ strange magnetic fields.

The results of these lab experiments were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and they honestly didn’t provide any solid answers to the mystery. The team was trying to determine if that liquid layer, full of various components like water, methane, and ammonia as well as various ions like the afore-mentioned magnesium, could create a magnetically stable region that influenced the overall field. And they found that the ammonia used in the sample, despite its being in what is described as a “superionic ammonia phase” still behaved like a regular liquid. So it wasn’t viscous enough to be the cause of any stability in the flow of the ions.

A null result is still a result, and that just means more research needs to be done. When they have more results, we’ll bring them to you here.

More Information

ETH Zürich press release

“Fluid-like elastic response of superionic NH3 in Uranus and Neptune,” Tomoaki Kimura and Motohiko Murakami, 2021 April 6, PNAS