{"id":17314,"date":"2023-02-20T19:55:11","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T11:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/scientists-create-new-types-of-salt-crystals-that-could-exist-on-europa\/"},"modified":"2023-02-20T19:55:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T11:55:11","slug":"scientists-create-new-types-of-salt-crystals-that-could-exist-on-europa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/scientists-create-new-types-of-salt-crystals-that-could-exist-on-europa\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists create new types of salt crystals that could exist on Europa"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/160920-europa-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Europa's surface\" class=\"wp-image-276463\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/160920-europa-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/160920-europa-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/160920-europa.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">An image from NASA\u2019s Galileo orbiter shows Europa\u2019s icy surface, crisscrossed by reddish-brown streaks of radiation-darkened salt. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL \/ Ted Stryk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life is Europa, a moon of Jupiter that\u2019s covered with a sheet of salty ice. But what kind of salt is there? Researchers say they\u2019ve created a new kind of salt crystal that could fill the bill, and perhaps raise hopes for finding life under the ice.<\/p>\n<p>This salt crystal is both exotic and common: It\u2019s actually table salt \u2014 also known as sodium chloride, with the chemical formula NaCl \u2014 but bound up with water molecules to form a hydrate that doesn\u2019t exist naturally on Earth.<\/p>\n<p>Earthly sodium chloride hydrates are composed of one salt molecule linked by hydrogen bonds with two water molecules. In contrast, the hydrates created in the lab consist of two NaCl molecules to 17 water molecules, or one NaCl molecule to 13 water molecules. (The structure for a third type of \u201chyperhydrated hydrate\u201d couldn\u2019t be determined.)<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s promising news for scientists who study Europa and other ice-covered worlds \u2014 including two other Jovian moons, Callisto and Ganymede; and the Saturnian moons Enceladus and Titan. Spectral observations indicate that Europa\u2019s surface ice contains salts, including sodium chloride, but the observed levels of concentration don\u2019t match up well with Earth\u2019s run-of-the-mill NaCl hydrates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOther explanations have involved other types of chlorinated salts that had large water\/salt ratios,\u201d University of Washington planetary scientist Baptiste Journaux, the lead author of a paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, told GeekWire in an email. \u201cThe issue with those is that we don\u2019t have chemical models to explain why they would form rather than NaCl.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jupiter's Moon Europa Has Table Salt on Surface\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f-SX2rrC7a4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The trick is that the new forms of NaCl hydrates can form on Earth only under extreme pressures. In the lab, a tiny bit of salty water was compressed between two diamonds that were the size of grains of sand, at pressures up to 25,000 as great as standard atmospheric pressure. As the transparent specks of diamonds squeezed in, the researchers watched the hydrate crystals form through a microscope.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe definitely were not expecting to find such new structures,\u201d Journaux said.<\/p>\n<p>The cold, high-pressure conditions that created the crystals in the lab could be common on Europa, where a miles-thick layer of ice is thought to press down on a hidden ocean that\u2019s dozens of miles deep.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HydrateCrystal.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-754605\" width=\"311\" height=\"296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HydrateCrystal.png 415w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HydrateCrystal-300x285.png 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HydrateCrystal-200x190.png 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/HydrateCrystal-105x100.png 105w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 311px) 100vw, 311px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">This photomicrograph shows the newly discovered hydrate that has two sodium chloride molecules for every 17 water molecules. This crystal formed at high pressure but remains stable in cold, low-pressure conditions. (Credit: Journaux et al. \/ PNAS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe ocean composition directly controls the type of organic chemistry and processes possible for the emergence and sustainability of extraterrestrial life,\u201d Journaux said. \u201cKnowing that sodium chloride is a major ingredient, as it is in Earth\u2019s oceans, will help astrobiologists determine how best to characterize life on another ocean world \u2014 and possibly detect it. Life emerging in water-ammonia oceans, for example, might be very different from life emerging from a salt-water ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Journaux said there\u2019s a chance that the newly discovered types of hydrates could be formed in Antarctica\u2019s ice-covered lakes, if the temperature gets cold enough and the pressure gets high enough. And generally speaking, learning more about how hydrates work could advance fields ranging from battery storage technology to climate science.<\/p>\n<p>But the big question is whether the exotic NaCl hydrates really do exist on worlds beyond Earth. That question could be answered for Europa by the European Space Agency\u2019s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, set for launch in April; or by NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission, which lifts off next year. NASA\u2019s Dragonfly mission, which heads for Titan in 2026, could conceivably sample the ice on Saturn\u2019s smog-shrouded moon. Meanwhile, Journaux and his colleagues plan to produce larger samples of the hydrates and learn more about them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnly with the recent development of high-pressure, low-temperature technology are we able to explore the oceans and interiors of water-rich worlds,\u201d he said. \u201cThis underlines how little we currently know about the minerals forming on and inside these icy worlds. These are exciting times \u2014 what has been done for Earth mineralogy in the 1800s and 1900s has to be done again for icy worlds, now that we are actually going there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Journaux\u2019s co-authors on the PNAS paper, titled \u201cOn the Identification of Hyperhydrated Sodium Chloride Hydrates, Stable at Icy Moon Conditions,\u201d include J. Michael Brown and Jason Ott of the University of Washington. Co-authors from other institutions: Anna Pakhomova, Ines Collings, Sylvain Petitgirard, Tiziana Boffa Ballaran, Steven Vance, Stella Chariton, Vitali Prakapenka, Dongyang Huang, Konstantin Glazyrin, Gaston Garbarino, Davide Comboni and Michael Hanfland.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An image from NASA\u2019s Galileo orbiter shows Europa\u2019s icy surface, crisscrossed by reddish-brown streaks of radiation-darkened salt. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL \/ Ted Stryk) A prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life is Europa, a moon of Jupiter that\u2019s covered with a sheet of salty ice. But what kind of salt is there? Researchers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1874,1659,4368],"class_list":["post-17314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobiology","tag-europa","tag-university-of-washington"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}