Comments on: Saturn’s core is a slushy mix of rocks and liquid

By: Jeff Wright

Jeff Wright — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 04:44:04 +0000

I wonder if a Dyson Harrop set up would work here, and/or skyhook. Titan has hydrocarbon seas that I want. Suppose I filled one Starship with fuel and an empty one close enough for Saturns gravity to yank it down and yank hydrocarbon filled coresupport off Titans surface, like a fountaining chain that just keeps going? Once the chain is in between, the indivdual cell ship train cars burn just enough to slingshot to Earth….all components plastic also made from Titans hydrocarbon seas. I think giant versions of chain fountains and drinking birds conjoined with orbital mechanics/skyhooks will fuel space industry.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 23:59:51 +0000

MadRocketSci,
You are correct, the metallic hydrogen is responsible for the dynamo on Jupiter. You only need three things to make a generator: a magnetic field, a conductive material, and movement of the two through each other. The hypothesis is the magnetic flux tube between Jupiter and Io is responsible for the volcanic forces on that moon (induction heating). That is a hell of a field!
It has been many years since I read anything about super conductivity and did not know this concept of diamond anvil cells. Thank you, I will read up on this concept.

At first when I read this article, I thought they were going to re-classify Saturn not as a gas-giant, but somewhere in-between a gas giant and an ice giant, due to increased size of the core and it’s contents.

By: MadRocketSci

MadRocketSci — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:17:49 +0000

My memory is swiss cheese – the induced superconductivity was at pressures even higher than diamond anvil cells can give you: They had to probe these states in devices that temporarily produced these pressures by detonating explosives. They might have called this stuff “Fermi Matter”, but – swiss cheese, sorry.

By: MadRocketSci

MadRocketSci — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:15:54 +0000

One of the more interesting presentations I saw at the 2018 APS confernce in Portland was a presentation on conductivity, and then superconductivity that’s induced in many types of matter under extreme (100 GPA+) pressures. The electron bubbles start to overlap, then certain transitions start taking place. Things like sulfur dioxide or sodium (my memory is swiss cheese so I may be wrong) can be made superconductive (briefly and precariously in diamond anvil cells.)

If thee were a way to somehow hold onto matter under 200 GPa -ish of pressure, we could have superconductors that operate at room temperature.

I think they’ve speculated in the past that Jupiter’s dynamo is due to metallic hydrogen – something else that they’ve managed to make (briefly and precariously, where it is nearly impossible to probe) in a diamond anvil cell. (Sudden reflectance characteristic of a plasma-frequency cutoff of free conductors, as in a metal.)

In Saturn’s case, some of the “metal” might not be metal – just matter forced into a conductive state.