Addressing Open Issues about the Structural Evolution of Methane Clathrate Hydrate

Methane is widespread in the Universe, and its occurrence intimately connected with that of water, often as clathrate hydrate, likely priority form which methane stored icy moons, water-rich exoplanets but also depths Earth’s oceans. Arrangement stability range crystalline structures, decomposition conditions, miscibility resulting dense fluid mixtures are crucial for modeling static dynamic properties these complex extraterrestrial environments identifying possible prebiotic reactive events under transient favorable conditions pressure, temperature, irradiation. Here, we report a high-pressure study hydrate up to 4 GPa 550 K. Ex situ synthesis allowed analysis homogeneous samples by state art Raman FTIR spectroscopy, accessing information considerably expands modifies our knowledge molten fluid’s characteristics wide pressure temperature range.