Characterising new planetary materials with neutron diffraction

Abstract

There’s a lot of hydrogen in the outer solar system; locked up with water on the icy Galilean moons of Jupiter, within the small organic molecules that rain down on Saturn’s moons Titan or even in an elusive metallic form within the centers of the gas giants. The intrinsic hydrogen-domination of planetary ices, makes studying these materials with laboratory powder diffraction very challenging. Insights into their crystalline phase behavior and the extraction of a number of thermal and mechanical properties is often only accessible with high-flux synchrotron x-ray diffraction or with neutron diffraction. Here, we will present how both the ECHIDNA and WOMBAT instruments at ACNS have been used to gain insights into new materials that have be found to exist under planetary conditions.