Okay so this is all based off a factoid of Jupiter I heard recently that the pressure on Jupiter makes the gas it’s comprised of feel like solid rock.
If this is actually the case, wouldn’t such pressure end up turning the elements into their solid states?
In: 201
The three phases, as taught in middle and high schools, are not nearly as neat and defined as they are covered. Especially when getting into “abnormal” conditions with high Temps and pressures. Even wilder is that most matter in the universe is in “abnormal” conditions, and the conditions that are enjoyed on the surface of the Earth are actually rare and abnormal, but that’s another discussion.
Anyways, the lines between solid, liquid, and gas are a lot fuzzier than they’re made out to be in school. In normal life, you may experience some fuzzy boundaries with amorphous solids. Glasses and polymers. Think putties and things like play dough, or clay. Ketchup in a bottle where it’s almost a solid and a liquid at the same time. Or, corn starch and water where it’s a liquid until you hit it, and then it’s almost like a solid. In more extreme conditions, it can get a lot fuzzier. Like, with water, you can have a triple point where the water is solid, liquid, and gas all the same time. The lines between liquid and gas can get so fuzzy that mathematically, they’re often treated together as a “fluid.”
Deep in Jupiter, the definitions of these phases as most people are familiar with break down. Usually, people think of gases being like air, liquids being like water (which is wild because water is way distinctly unique to most liquids), and solids being like a desk or a door. If you were falling down through Jupiter’s atmosphere, you’d be crushed and die, but if somehow magically you weren’t, then you would enter layers where it wouldn’t be clear to you if you were in a gas or liquid. The usual meanings break down as the pressure gets insanely high, and things get very hot.
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