Overview
- New Nature results demonstrate that hydrogen reacting with silicate melt can generate large quantities of water under high pressure and temperature.
- Experiments conducted at 16–60 gigapascals and above 4,000 kelvin converted about 18% of the initial sample mass into water.
- Based on the lab yields, the authors estimate that some planets could accumulate roughly 5% to 28% water by mass through this process.
- The mechanism offers an in-situ explanation for close-in sub-Neptunes and hycean worlds, supporting a continuum from hydrogen-rich to water-rich planets.
- The team used pulsed-laser heating in diamond-anvil cells to achieve brief extreme conditions, and they call for broader material tests and observational checks to assess how widely the process operates.