This Strange Liquid Retains Its Shape, Appears to Defy Thermodynamics
An unexpected shape formed when a graduate student accidentally blended oil, water and nickel. Scientists discovered that the shape-recovering liquid defied the laws of thermodynamics. Instead of minimising the interfacial area and turning into a sphere, the mixture of liquid took the shape of a Grecian urn. This research was conducted by a team led by a graduate student, Anthony Raykh, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; the findings were published on April 4 in the Journal Nature Physics.
The Accidental Discovery
As per the study, Raykh, a student of polymer science and engineering, was experimenting with a jumble of water, oil and nickel particles in a container. To create an emulsion, he shook the vial. The mixture didn’t get separated as it should have, instead, it formed the shape of a Grecian urn. Even after shaking the mixture multiple times, the liquid kept returning to this shape. Thomas Russell, a professor of polymer science and engineering, told Live Science that this is an odd behaviour of the particles. It is quite strange because such a mixture doesn’t blend, and it returns to the state of equilibrium.
A Challenge to Thermodynamics
The blend tends to reduce the line of separation or interfacial area between the two liquids before emulsion. The law of thermodynamics governs this tendency, showing how temperature, work, heat and energy relate to each other. The liquid generally forms spherical droplets, having a minimum surface area. In contrast to this, the Grecian urn has a higher surface area, contradicting the law of nature, baffling the scientists.
Magnetic Interactions Take Over
After the investigation of this strange behaviour of the particles, they found that the interactions between the particles of nickel “sort of took over” and defied the law of thermodynamics, Russell says. The magnetic poles of the particles attracted each other, making a chain on the surface of the liquid. This interaction intersects with the phenomenon of emulsion of the liquid. Russell told the researchers have examined the separation of the particles in an oil-water blend. But in contrast to this, Raykh had added nickel to the mixture, which nobody else did. Thus, none had observed the shape of the Grecian urn with higher interficial energy.
A Strange Case, Not a Violation
Initially, this seemed to challenge the law of thermodynamics, but Russell clarified that this is a strange behaviour of the particles due to the magnetic field. This magnetic field influenced a high interfacial energy, which resulted in the formation of a higher surface area shape.
Russell says the law of thermodynamics applies to the system as a whole and not just based on interactions between the individual particles.
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Asteroid Vesta, long considered a stalled protoplanet, may actually be a massive fragment of a larger world that once existed in our solar system. New findings based on gravity-field mapping and spin-rate data suggest Vesta lacks the dense core typically found in differentiated planetary bodies. The discovery challenges previous assumptions, drawn from NASA’s Dawn mission in 2012, that classified Vesta as an embryonic planet. Now, scientists report that Vesta might have been ejected from a differentiated world in a massive collision 4.5 billion years ago, upending ideas about the development of planets and asteroids.
New Gravity Data Suggests Vesta Is Debris from a Destroyed Planet, Not a Protoplanet
As per a new study published in Nature Astronomy on April 23, 2025, Vesta does not quite match the former model. Refined calibration methods polished the radio Doppler signals, confirming the absence of a metal-rich core, which was inconsistent with earlier work. Seth Jacobson of Michigan State University, who led the research, stated the new interpretation marks a major shift in planetary science. While Vesta’s basaltic, volcanic surface still indicates geological activity, its internal uniformity contradicts the expectations of a body that once underwent full differentiation.
This paradox has caused scientists to reconsider the asteroid’s heritage. One scenario is that Vesta started to differentiate but never got very far. But data from meteorites called howardite-eucrite-diogenites (HEDs), thought to have come from Vesta, show no signs of such incomplete differentiation. Jacobson and his team instead favour the explanation that Vesta was formed from material blasted off a fully developed planet during an ancient planetary collision, which could also illustrate its volcanic surface without requiring it to have a dense core.
The results not only question Vesta’s identity but also suggest a possibility of a more general theory: that other asteroids could also be pieces of shattered planets. NASA’s Psyche and ESA’s Hera missions, planned for the next decades, intend to do such gravity investigations, which could ultimately confirm this new view. Jacobson noted that Vesta’s composition could even hint at a shared origin with Earth or other early planets, a hypothesis that may reshape asteroid science entirely.
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