Can water be compressed?

About 70% of the earth's surface is covered by oceans, but we don't know enough about the oceans, especially the dark deep sea, which hides many unknown things.

Humans have never stopped speculating about the depths of the ocean.

The deepest part of the ocean known to mankind is the Mariana Trench, which reaches about 11,000 meters at its deepest point. Since this number was obtained, people have started to have sudden ideas, such as what would happen if an iron ball was thrown into the sea and sank to 11,000 meters.

Today, we are going to talk about another scenario: if you put 1 liter of water in a sealed container and bring it up from the bottom of the sea at 11,000 meters, what will happen to the water? Next, let's take a look!

The water in the deep sea is not the same as the water on the surface?

What happens when water comes up from the seabed 11,000 meters deep?

Although humans are currently unable to walk freely on the seabed at a depth of 11,000 meters, they can still successfully "land on the bottom" by riding on a special submersible.

So the idea is to have people take a liter of water from the bottom of the sea at a depth of 11,000 meters, fill it up, and then bring the container up to the surface to observe what happens inside the container.

Seemingly ordinary water also has "mysteries"

First of all, it should be noted that this experiment has never been done in reality, so everything is inferred from the data under ideal conditions. If this experiment is really done, there may be a certain error between the conclusions and this.

People have always been afraid of the deep sea because the air pressure here is too strong. Generally speaking, when the water depth increases by ten meters, the pressure will rise by one atmosphere, and the air pressure at a depth of 11,000 meters can reach about 111135300 Pa, which is equivalent to about 1100 atmospheres. In this case, the density of water will change and be "squeezed" more tightly.

Schematic diagram of the three states of water

According to the specific values, the volume of water here will be compressed by about 4.96%. Therefore, when we put this compressed water into a sealed container and then take it out, the water will experience the effect of pressure change.

To be precise, when it emerges from the water, its volume will definitely expand, and this expanded volume is about 1.05 times its original volume.

It turns out that the volume of seawater also changes according to depth.

It can be seen that if the sealed container is large enough, the expansion of water does not seem to have much impact. So, is this really the case? If the container is opened, will something else happen?

This is what happened when Barton and Bibb were testing a spherical deep-sea probe in the 1930s. Bibb himself was very interested in animals and had been the director of the New York Zoo because of related research. Bibb, who liked to collect animal specimens, focused his attention on the sea after achieving certain success.

Bieber (left) and Patton (right)

In 1928, the British government agreed to allow Beeber to establish a research station in Bermuda and to have the authority to study the marine life there.

At this time, the submarine could dive to 383 feet, but there were no windows to observe the outside world, which was of no use to Bieber who wanted to observe the movements of marine animals.

The news was known to engineer Patton, who soon told his design to Beeber and received his approval and help.

According to the data, Patton personally described and demonstrated his design at the time. "This submersible is a spherical body, which can better withstand the huge pressure of the deep sea. It has three openings that can be equipped with three thick windows made of fused quartz."

The first device used by humans to explore the deep sea

After the construction was completed, the two began to conduct related experiments. The first few times went smoothly, but then there was an accident that they would never forget. It turned out that during one of the tests, the diving ball was filled with water when it surfaced.

At first, although the two men observed that the diving ball was leaking, they did not take it seriously, so they quickly opened the "sealed" metal cabin. However, they did not expect that when they opened the bolts of the metal hatch, the water inside would spray out like a "gun barrel", and the bolts flew out and smashed an obvious gap in the steel winch on the deck.

It is reported that Bieber later described in his memoir "Half Mile Deep" that if the two of them were in the capsule at the time, the water under such pressure "would have shot through their muscles and bones like steel bullets before they drowned."

Patton and Beeber in the submarine

It is not difficult to see from this that when water returns to the surface from the deep sea, it will not only expand, but also "pressurize" itself. Only when people open this sealed container can they experience its power. It is no exaggeration to say that at this time, the container and water are like "bombs" and pose a huge threat.

At this point, some people may question whether water can be compressed? Is the water at 11,000 meters deep really different from the water we usually see?

What does compressed water look like?

Can water be compressed?

Although many people do not believe it, water can indeed be compressed. First of all, from a microscopic perspective, water is composed of water molecules. Under different environmental conditions, water can switch back and forth between the three states of solid, liquid, and gas, which means that the distance between its molecules has "change" space.

For example, the distance between molecules in water vapor is actually greater than that of liquid water, so under the right conditions, it is not a problem to compress water vapor. Whether water can be compressed actually depends on the changes in temperature and pressure.

Schematic diagram of the structure of a water molecule

The changes in water at a depth of 11,100 meters discussed above are mainly related to pressure. Although compared with other substances, the compression of water in this case is not obvious, we still cannot ignore this compression.

Of course, what is compressed is the volume of water, not its mass. Sometimes people confuse the two. For example, if we see that the water has different volumes on the sea surface and the seabed, we think that its mass has also decreased. You should know that according to the law of conservation of mass, it is impossible to affect the total mass by simply changing the density.

Conceptual diagram of water molecule

It is worth mentioning that scientists believe that in order to compress water as much as possible, it is necessary not only to increase the pressure but also to reduce the temperature. For this, the seabed seems to have met the standard invisibly. In addition, some people wonder to what limit water can be compressed.

If we ignore factors such as technology and environment, under ideal conditions, if we compress water madly, it is possible to compress it into a "solid state" eventually.

However, the "water" at this time may no longer be called water, but has become another kind of magical existence.

The three forms of water

In summary, everyone should have understood what happens when water is brought up from 11,000 meters below the surface. I believe everyone has also experienced how terrifying the pressure of the deep sea is. So, can any creatures really survive in this dark seabed?

Humans have yet to conquer the deep sea

Humans have always believed that they can go anywhere with technology, and there is no place they cannot conquer. But now, although we have completed spacewalks, we have not completed deep-sea walks, which proves that humans have not actually conquered the deep sea.

The ocean is as mysterious as the universe

At this point, someone might say that because the environment here is so harsh, if a person walks out of the submersible directly, he or she might be "crushed".

In fact, the current situation may be more tragic than everyone imagines. After all, many people have seen the tragedy of submarines falling off cliffs and then disintegrating. It is worth mentioning that when humans were at a loss, some creatures had already occupied the underwater world.

Many creatures are much stronger than we think.

It turns out that after people successfully landed on the bottom of the Mariana Trench in a submersible, they began a "biological census" to see if there were any living creatures there.

It turns out that despite the dark and barren appearance of the trench, there are actually quite a few creatures living in this dark "slum", including many strange-looking fish.

Lionfish photographed at a depth of 8718 meters

Of course, scientists have also seen what they least want to see, which is plastic waste. In other words, although humans have not conquered the deep sea, our "garbage" has made it to the bottom of the sea and continues to harm the creatures living there.

If the creatures in the trench were simply "not full" in the past because the environment here was too barren, then now they can eat their fill, but what they eat is the "garbage" thrown by humans.

Plastic waste lying silently at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

In addition, because plastic waste degrades very slowly, the creatures here will have to coexist with the waste in the next hundred or thousand years. If humans could really take a scoop of water from here, they would probably be able to detect countless "microplastics" in it.

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