Since Canadian astronomers discovered the first extra-solar planet in 1988, we now know of almost two hundred and fifty worlds orbiting stars other than our own. While some so-called “Earthlike”planets have been identified, the vast majority of these new planets are gas giants, much closer to Jupiter in character. The discovery of these new planets has challenged existing astrophysical models, and has helped to provide insight into the nature of solar systems, both our own and those of distant stars. Here we report result of first principles molecular dynamics simulations, based on density functional theory (DFT-GGA), of hydrogen and hydrogen-helium mixtures under conditions relevant to gas giants. These data can be used to improve existing planetary models, which depend strongly on the accuracy of input parameters.
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