Like being inside a star: Simulating high pressures
Monday, March 24, 2014 - 15:10
in Physics & Chemistry
Some experiments are really difficult to perform in practice. To gain a detailed understanding of the behaviour of molecular hydrogen, for example, we would have to produce such high pressures as those occurring within the core of gaseous planets like Jupiter and Saturn or inside stars. If such conditions cannot be created, an alternative method is to simulate them on the computer, but the model has to be accurate. A group of research scientists used a simulation model that is far more accurate than previously used, and carried out an experiment to test a hypothesis about the behavior of hydrogen that is splitting the scientific community.