Mars Was Habitable Longer Than We Thought
It is a scientific consensus that water once flowed on Mars, and that it had a denser atmosphere, meaning that it was once habitable. Unfortunately, roughly 4.2 to 3.7 billion years ago, Mars’ rivers, lakes, and global ocean began to disappear as solar wind slowly stripped its atmosphere away. For scientists, the question of how long it remained habitable has been the subject of ongoing inquiry. Where some scientists maintain that Mars ceased being habitable billions of years ago, recent research suggests that it experienced periods of habitability that lasted for eons. This includes recent findings by NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring the Gale Crater on Mars to…
Liquid-liquid critical point mapped in deep neural network
A new study in Nature Physics has shed light on the long-hypothesized liquid-liquid critical point, where water exists simultaneously in two distinct liquid forms, opening up new possibilities for experimental validation. Water is known for its anomalous properties – unlike most substances, it is densest in the liquid state, not the solid. This leads to unique behaviors, such as ice floating on water. One of these unusual features has prompted decades of research to understand the unique behavior of water, especially in the supercooled regime. However, studying this phase transition (LLPT), which is thought to occur in the supercooled regime, has faced challenges that researchers wanted to address. “Water is…
