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Strange Alien World Made of "Hot Ice"
David Shiga writes "The smallest planet ever seen passing in front of its parent star is a strange world of scorching hot ice, astronomers say. The 22-Earth-mass planet has been known since 2004, but recent observations of it passing in front of its parent star have allowed them to learn much more about it. It appears to be made mostly of water, but not in liquid form. The planet orbits so close to its parent star that its surface is a broiling 300 C, keeping any water there in vapor form. Beneath the atmosphere, the water is even hotter, but is at such high pressure because of the planet's large mass that it stays in a solid, "hot ice" form."
Aren't we still speculating whether water exists on other planets within our own solar system? To say with such conviction that there's a whole planet made of nothing but water with so little data is a big leap of faith. I'm not a flat-earther, but they should have a little more to go on before announcing something like this.
Life can exist in that environment. It does here on Earth.
l -deep-ocean-vents
http://science.enotes.com/earth-science/geotherma
You're right, I guess I should have consulted the latest available phase diagram! Water is so strange.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
OK, it isn't ice. 300 degree water under pressure is still just water.
It's a question of what ice really is. Is ice water at 0 degrees or less, or is ice simply a solid form of water? If you agree to the second condition then this is ice. It's all a matter of definition and conditions.
Just for the record: I am not a chemist.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
What I mean is that we know hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe, and that supernovas and previous-generation stars have been producing heavier elements (like oxygen) for a few billion years now, yet we are still surprised to find water everywhere.
I think it is obvious that we WILL find water everywhere...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
When you look at something (anything) in front of you all you are looking at is light waves. In fact the actual process of how your brain perceives that object in front of you is even more indirect than that!
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Yeah. I bet you also disregard claims that you have a tumor in your brain because an MRI is just a bunch of nonsense. Hey, if they didn't CUT YOU OPEN and take a look, how can they really know?
If you don't understand something as basic as spectroscopic evidence, you are in no position to make claims about the veracity of real research.
Reminds me of when I was elementary school and started an argument with the dumbass teacher about the same thing. I don't remember what the exact question was but had something do to with the temperature and water/ice. The teacher could not conceive that it was possible to have water in solid form at a temperature higher than freezing.
And people wonder why I hated school.
Most people think the problem is ignorant teachers. This is only part of the problem. All teachers will be ignorant to some degree, just like every other person on the planet. No one can know everything.
The problem is the teachers that are ignorant, but convince themselves that they know more than the students in every case. They usually do this because the student is in class to learn, and they are in class to teach, therefore they believe the student must know less than them. Though this is almost always the case, they forget that it's actually quite common for some students to know more than them about some individual aspects of the subject matter.
You knew more than the teacher. He didn't believe you. This is not bad. Teachers can't take on faith every nut-job idea put forth from every know-it-all student. But all he had to do was say, "that's a very interesting idea. I'd love to read more about it if you can find some material on the subject." You're happy, because the teacher isn't treating you like you can't possibly know anything. He's happy, because it shuts you up about, "some wild idea." The school system is happy, because when you do show up with a source it might improve the curriculum (not likely in elementary school, but maybe in high school). And finally your parents and your educational agenda should be happy because looking for the source is likely to be a great learning opportunity.
"You're wrong," is a bad policy. "We're open to new ideas if you can show that they work," is almost always better.
by definition you cannot have water in solid form at a temperature higher than freezing. That is what freezing means. The freezing point (as well as the boiling point) is not a fixed value though, and can change based on pressure and any impurities in the water. Technically your teacher was right, according to the words you and he were using.
At high temperatures and pressures necessary for supercritical water, it becomes too corrosive to be held in most materials. If I recall correctly, you need tungsten for the walls, and either diamond or corundum (sapphire) for any windows, and corundum needs to replaced periodically because it is corroded slowly.
I don't know of any techniques that will increase the temperature and pressure capacity of that apparatus.