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."

Comments

Interesting.

[jshriverWVU]

Kinda OT, but wonder if hot ice can be made on earth in a controlled environment.

Re:Interesting.

[UbuntuDupe]

Since it's just a matter of increasing the pressure, yes, but don't think you can just reach inside the pressurized chamber and touch it.

Side note: this is vindication for all the times people riduculed me for responding to claims about water's boiling/melting point with "Wait -- what pressure are we talking about here?"

Re:Interesting.

[someone1234]

Yes, iirc it was already done. See Sandia Z machine.

Re:Interesting.

[Control Group]

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer as gleaned from the link above if people don't want to bother clicking: yes; the Z-machine at Sandia is able (at least) to form Ice VII.

Re:Interesting.

[__aaclcg7560]

That item is available at your local drug store. ;)

Re:Interesting.

[www.themodernman.com]

Cool!

Plenty of you might might have seen this, but for those of you who haven't: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfwY2TNehw

Cheers
Dan
Confidence With Women

Re:Interesting.

[eln]

the Z-machine at Sandia is able (at least) to form Ice VII.

Psh. If you ask me, the Ice series has gone downhill since Ice III. They really started phoning it in in Ice IV, and Ice V and VI were damn near unwatchable.

Re:Interesting.

[Chris Mattern]

Are you kidding? Ice VI was possibly the best of the series, and Ice VII was a real breakthrough. Full 3-D and just amazing cutscenes. Ice X was too girly, though, and Ice X-2 was worse.

Chris Mattern

Re:Interesting.

[MindKata]

... and they iced a few main characters in X3

Re:Interesting.

[drasfr]

I bet to raise a few questions here on we can't touch it.

Ice/Solid water as we know it under 1 atmosphere is formed at 0C/32F...

Let's say that under 300 atmospheres, Ice/solid water can be formed at 100C/212F

Why can't we have have Ice/Solid water at 30C/86F under atmospheres where is somewhere between 1 and 300? assuming the 300 hypothesis for solid at 100C/212F?

That would allow touching it... assuming the pressure isn't too much... or maybe, that would happen if we suddently release the pressure? from 300atmospheres to 1? Would it 'melts' immediately? or its molecular state changing slowly back? I am curious...

Re:Interesting.

[Gilmoure]

Got into a verbal with Earth science teacher, in 9th grade (he was also wrestling coach). He insisted that one side of the moon was always dark. I even used the orrery to show that the 'darkside' of the moon also gets light. Man, he didn't like that one. Who knew a science geek could get a D in Earth Science? /in gym, got paired up with kid on the wrestling team. Ouch!

Re:Interesting.

[vought]

Kinda OT, but wonder if hot ice can be made on earth in a controlled environment.


Of course it can. Professor Hoenikker showed this very easily with Ice-nine.

Re:Interesting.

[metagnat]

Well, "freezing" is not a temperature, merely a convenient local designation. Or so the newly discovered planet would seem to prove.

-E

Re:Interesting.

[Gilmoure]

I'm still looking forward to iIce X 10.5.

Re:Interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Interesting.

[bkr1_2k]

If you had enough pressure to keep it solid at 30C you'd probably crush your hand if you could put it in the chamber. If you released the pressure suddenly, odds are the reaction would be violent, sending boiling water and steam everywhere quickly until the system equalized.

Think of what happens if you create a pinhole in the barrier between two drastically different pressure systems and you'll have something similar to what would happen.

Re:Interesting.

[TougaSempai]

If you released the pressure suddenly, it should get a lot colder as the gas inside suddenly expands. Maybe even cold enough to keep the ice frozen, for a little while anyway. (See Ideal Gas Law)

Re:Interesting.

[JohnnyLocust]

Kinda OT, but wonder if hot ice can be made on earth in a controlled environment.

Goldschläger. Although if you drink enough, I'd hardly call it a controlled environment.

Re:Interesting.

[Gaijin42]

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.

Re:Interesting.

[AJWM]

FYI, the pressure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench is something over 1000 atm. The temperature is pretty cold -- a few degrees C. The water isn't solid.

We're talking much higher pressures here, the kind that forms diamonds.

Re:Interesting.

[jshriverWVU]

Goldschläger. Although if you drink enough, I'd hardly call it a controlled environment.

LMAO!! reminds me of the college years. ;)

Re:Interesting.

[Control Group]

300 atmospheres is far too little pressure for the interesting forms of ice. To get the neat stuff, you need to be working with a couple hundred MPa, up to around 70 GPa. We're talking about 2000 atmospheres up to 7E5 atmospheres.

That being said, I have no idea what happens when you take the pressure off. But I imagine it would be pretty cool to see... ...as long as you weren't too close.

Re:Interesting.

[Amouth]

your also talking about moving water..

moving water doesn't freeze

also it isn't water it is water with alot of other things in it .. mainly alot of salt.. which lowers the required temp even more

that and it's moving

Re:Interesting.

[fractalVisionz]

Actually, if you put water in a vacuum, it will start to boil, due to the decrease in pressure. Once near a full vacuum, the water will actually boil into ice, forming "hot" room temperature ice.

Re:Interesting.

[Maximum Prophet]

Wow, if I ever had a teacher use that method when I was in school, my attitude would have improved dramatically.

Re:Interesting.

[malvidin]

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.

Re:Interesting.

[Thingummywut]

Unfortunately for you, he is actually correct. You may want to look up information regarding the moon's rotation rate and its relation to the revolution rates. Yes, the moon does rotate.

Re:Interesting.

[Thingummywut]

Shit, misread ya and thought you were arguing for the other side. blarg.

Re:Interesting.

[Gilmoure]

No problem. Even running the orrery, with the little light bulb for the sun, showing him that all the moon gets bathed in light, as it rotates and revolves, he didn't get it. Or, he realized some smart ass 14 year old had just shown him up.

Re:Interesting.

[Old Benjamin]

... And the best policy is a competent teach who knows that water freezes at 0 degrees centigrade at sea level... and what they do is say... Oh wait, you're right!

Re:Interesting.

[eclectus]

The water at the bottom of the marianna's trench is very close to freezing, but in this case, the pressure is actually what keeps if from freezing. Water has a strange property where the liquid form can (at certain temp/pressures) have a greater density than the solid form (ice). This is why ice floats, and also what makes ice skates work (the pressure of the skate turns the top layer of ice into a thin film of water. If you compress ice at 0 degrees celsius it will turn into water, while compressing water at 100 degrees celsius will eventually result in hot ice. The phase diagram for H2O can be found here

Re:Interesting.

[Falstius]

For me it was an English teacher ridiculing me in front of the class when I objected to her statement that the seasons are due to the Earth moving closer and farther from the sun.

Re:Interesting.

[larpon]

0Y/2E/12S 4B/23I/5G 4B/14R/43O/45T/7H/2E/8R,
23I 9W/23I/1L/1L 4F/14R/2E/2E/34Z/2E 98A/45T 0C,
67M/2E 9W/23I/1L/1L/0Y 12S/7H/8R/23I/78N/700K/12S!

Re:Interesting.

[IpalindromeI]

Fun trivia: The Earth is actually farthest from the sun during the northern hemisphere's summer.

Re:Interesting.

[AJWM]

moving water doesn't freeze

Riiight. Rivers never freeze, and Arctic sea ice is a myth.

Uh huh.

Re:Interesting.

[timmarhy]

only the tops of rivers freeze because they are the slowest moving parts of the water, hence why they freeze from the edges in, and why lakes freeze first. he also clearly stated it's salt water which takes a lot more to freeze. try actually reading what was said ok?

Re:Interesting.

[timmarhy]

well i worked in a nickle plant and we had 4 autoclaves which heated water to 200c under 5000psi, and even after 2 step down chanbers the jet of steam coming from the final step downs chimney was 50 meters or so high. so save to say 300c water woudl be an impressive explosion.

Re:Interesting.

[bobzieruncle]

Mod parent up. Not even Arnold could save Ice VI.

Re:Interesting.

[thc69]

One of the things you're supposed to learn in school is that it doesn't always matter if you're right...sometimes you have to ignore the truth and accept the bullshit.

Re:Interesting.

[ChromaticDragon]

Although teachers that readily admit they will have students smarter than them are rare, they should be applauded. I definitely appreciated the ones I had.

I had a geometry/trigonometry teacher that often told us he expected the students to be smarter than him. Mind you, he wasn't just saying some students would occasionally know a piece of trivia or more about one small subject area. He meant that he firmly believe that he would often have students that were smarter than he was.

He was consistent about this. Once when he was writing a complicated trig proof, I held up my hand to comment. I told him he was being "a masochist" and replace his eight line proof with a two line one. He demonstrated no insecurity about this whatsoever but rather commended my idea. Indeed, I found the insecure teachers to be very dangerous.

Is it any surprise that if we have teachers that believe and inspire their students to believe that they will be smarter, do more, etc., that we progress? Is it any surprise that when teachers believe and force their students to believe that they do not know more and may never know more than they do that we as a nation are on a continued slide downwards by many measures?

When teachers cherish and relish learning and discovery, they inspire and instill this in the students. The blind regurgitation of facts ("dark" side of the moon, freezing temperature, etc.) is all the more disturbing because we don't teach people about how to think about how and why we know such things (which would involve understanding assumptions or exceptions).

Re:Interesting.

[db32]

That is a sketchy statement. That is what they WANT you to learn. Kinda one of those relations to overloading of homework and having everyone sit quietly and work. They condition you to doing repetitive meaningless work, which is one of those core values of the corporate machine. (Note: Not all homework is like this, plenty of it is legitimate practice, exploration, or study, but a great deal of it is mindless repetitive crap that has little value).

The strange irony to this is that the ones that don't fall into the 'accept the bullshit' are the movers and shakers in the world. They dream up wonderful and great things to advance humanity, are ostracized and sometimes murdered, and then years later touted as the greatest minds of their time. Just look at what happened to the folks who dared challenge the idea that the sun rotated around us, or that you could sail off the edge of the world (In a strange bit of irony that is ultimately what space travel involves, but it takes much more planning and effort than the accidental falling off the world that was claimed at the time)

Re:Interesting.

[StikyPad]

STP.. it's not just a fuel additive.

Re:Interesting.

[Tom Womack]

Yes, you can make various hot-ices on Earth using a diamond-anvil cell - the pressures required tend to be in the gigapascals, so tens of thousands of atmospheres. At fairly high pressure you get ice-7, where the oxygen atoms in the water form two interpenetrating cubic lattices; at higher pressure you get ice-10 where the oxygen atoms are all lined up in a single cubic lattice.

Re:Interesting.

[Maximum Prophet]

A contractor friend I once knew told me about living in a certain backwards part of the country. He said that in the culture there it was the way of the community to put down anyone who was trying to improve themselves because that meant they were "Trying to get above us". He said the putdowns were more subtle, rather than overt, but they were effective and all pervasive. The school systems in this culture worked the same way, and did their best to keep anyone from getting ahead.

I once had an earth science teacher who told the class that 200 foot lightning bolts were about 25,000 volts. I corrected him, and pointed to our book that gave a figure of 25,000,000. He said that the book isn't always right. I let it go, and didn't tell him that I was a high voltage hobbiest who regularly played with 40,000 volt arcs, and I had never seen one that could go more that about 2 inches.

My parents always wanted me to do better than they did, and as a parent, I want more for my children than I had. Unfortunatly not all parents feel this way.

Re:Interesting.

[Dan Hayes]

Go even further up the scales and you get ionic and "superionic" phases which are even stranger!

Re:Interesting.

[KDR_11k]

The correct term is triple point and used for the SI definition of Kelvin.

Re:Interesting.

[theghost]

I always remember that fact and how i learned it - from one of those cheesy science movies they showed when the teacher didn't feel like teaching. The narrator compared the difference in distance to the sun like being 45 feet away from a campfire in summer and 40 feet away in winter. It's not the distance but the angle of the rays coming down and the resultant density of light that heats us up.

Weird how some stuff sticks with you.

Re:Interesting.

[Amouth]

ok maybe doens't wasn't the right word.. but it does make it alot more difficult for it to freeze..

Re:Interesting.

[Squalish]

Not true.

H2O crystals can be turned up to 11.

Water?

[Iggowanna]

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.

Re:Water?

[ArcherB]

No, we have confirmed the existence of water on other planets in our own solar system. Even Jupiter has water vapor in its clouds and Europa is covered in it. Even comets have a bunch of it. It's liquid water that's harder to come by. We're not so much looking for water as much as we are looking for water that can harbor life.

Re:Water?

[zappepcs]

The methods that they use to determine the components of other planet's atmospheres is valid, though I don't know how accurate. I believe that it's incredibly cool that we can even hypothesize with any scientific ability as to the make up of other planets at this point. Also, I believe that we have found water ice on Mars already, just need to get a rover there to investigate it further.

One of the reasons for looking for water/ice on other planets (now that we can find them) is that water is believed to be a key ingredient of life supporting environments. Thus explaining the reason to try to find water/ice evidence.

Re:Water?

[MightyMartian]

One word: spectroscopy.

Re:Water?

[maxwell demon]

Aren't we still speculating whether water exists on other planets within our own solar system?

From the article (emphasize by me):
The inferred composition of the planet is very much like that of Neptune, which is also made mostly of ice, Pont says. "If you bring Neptune nearer to the Sun and it's heated outside to 300 C, that's exactly what you get," he told New Scientist.
I guess this answers your question.

Re:Water?

[Anonymous Coward]

My ass still hurts from the last time I got one of those.

Re:Water?

[j00r0m4nc3r]

I'm not a flat-earther

Burn the heretic!

Re:Water?

[AJWM]

We can see water ice on Mars with a good telescope. The permanent polar ice caps are water ice, they seasonally expand with carbon dioxide (dry) ice.

What's getting planetary scientists exciting is finding evidence of water away from the polar caps.

Re:Water?

[gstoddart]

One word: spectroscopy.

One more word: trampompoline :-P

(note to mods, this shouldn't detract from the fact that the parent is exactly correct in why we can infer the presence of water)

Cheers

Re:Water?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "faith" is in the eye of the reader.
As you don't know the data, you have the following choices:

1 - Believe the scientific method is good enough, and that those people know their job, and so, accept this as scientific truth, as long as someone more competent than you does not disprove it

2 - Disbelieve it, and thus, try to prove it wrong. The problem is that there are a lot of people on this planet more competent than you are who are already working on the data to see if it is correct or not. Apparently, until now, no one saw an error in the data.

3 - Disbelieve it blindly, just because it seems strange or alien to you. Now, you're falling on faith, not reason. And you ARE a earth-flattener.

The scientific method is not about some prophet dictating dogmatic truths about the universe he/she finds poetic.
It is engineered to make it easy to find errors in reasonings or methods.
In fact, there is a whole philosophic branch working on that (Epistémologie, in french). Popper is a name that you should google, if you're interested about that.

So, when a handful of scientists say anything, ANYTHING, you can bet at least twice of thrice (or 10x, or even 100x) more people are busy verifying the facts, if only to be able to publish the contradictory article. What you see there is competition at its best.

The whole majority of people on this planet, including those who followed high level studies in university in the field (i.e. physics, maths, etc.) cannot hope to even understand what's going on because they don't work 24 hours per day on the subject. It's like saying: I don't believe this guy can run 100 meters in 10 seconds because I know *I* can't do it in 12. Of course, having scientific background can help you understand somewhat, but to understand more than that, you'll have to work a lot.

So, in the end, this is a matter of trust. Something like opensource: The articles are published, and everyone, anyone can go read them, and find the error. No one reported the error? So perhaps there is none, and the article is right. Again, in software-parlance, it means that people using this software accept the fact they are "probably safe" not because they read the code, but because they know people more skilled than they are are reading the code.

It becomes blind faith if you accept it wholeheartedly, or if you refuse it blindly.

But all in all, there is one fact that only G.W. Bush would believe he could disprove: No TV set stopped functionning because its user believed it could not work. And planes don't stop flying just because there are some people disbelieving that something weighting more than air should not fly.

Re:Water?

[seaturnip]

You are being overly harsh to the grandparent. He just expressed some doubt as to the strength of the underlying data, which is not unreasonable considering that we have only tiny indirect shreds of data to go on with these extrasolar planets. He was not denying obvious facts (as flat-earthers do) or questioning science in general.

Hot Ice

[MillionthMonkey]

The inside of this planet is a solid core of vanilla ice cream at tremendous temperature and pressure. Although heated above its normal melting point, it is kept in a frozen solid state by the sheer mass of molten hot chocolate lying on top of it.

Re:Hot Ice

[Aqua_boy17]

So that's explains where Vanilla Ice really came from. That could explain some things...

Re:Hot Ice

[TheMadcapZ]

No!

Nothing can explain him. Lets just keep ignoring him and hopefully he'll go away..... in his Five Point O.

Re:Hot Ice

[kharri1073]

Some guys ice down their arm after a big game...some say that heat's the way to go, but i have discovered the secret ... HOT ICE ... HOT ICE ... I heat up the ice cubes. It's the best of both worlds!

Re:Hot Ice

[vengeful_ferengi]

Rumor has it that a joint US/Russian expeditionary mission is in the works, funded in part by Baskin Robins and TCBY Frozen treats.

Re:Hot Ice

[sconeu]

Is this a +1 Lucifer's Hammer reference?

Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesday this year!

Oh no! It's ice 9!

[jimstapleton]

We're doomed!

Re:Oh no! It's ice 9!

[garett_spencley]

Joe Satriani is coming to kill us ?

I always suspected he was a maniacal killer in disguise!

Re:Oh no! It's ice 9!

[camg188]

You stole my thunder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat's_Cradle.

Re:Oh no! It's ice 9!

[Hoi Polloi]

We're safe as long as they don't retrieve any samples.

Re:Oh no! It's ice 9!

[miller701]

Ever since he shaved his head, I've wondered about him.

Strange ice

[Doctor Faustus]

If the pressure is keeping it solid, would it also keep it from forming the crystal structure that makes ice less dense than water? Normally, pressure (say, from an ice skate) turns ice briefly into liquid water.

I think, anyway... This is going back to my last chemistry class in 1994.

Re:Strange ice

[HetMes]

This has been proven to be false. Being able to skate on ice has something to do with the upper crystal layer being of unique structure. No links, just Google it.

Re:Strange ice

[lamarguy91]

It's not the pressure that turns the ice temporarily to water, it's the friction applied to the surface, as well as the temperature difference.

Put a frozen bag of veggies on an ice cube in the freezer. Let it sit for an hour. Go back, check it. Both are still frozen, although the back of veggies was exerting a small amount of pressure (due to gravity) on the ice cube.

For your skate theory, the coefficient of friction between the skate and the surface of the ice, as well as the skate itself being above 32 degrees (I've never worn a frozen skate to go ice skating...), combine to produce the temporary effect that you are referring to.

For some additional reading and a more technical explanation, check out the following link:
http://faculty.virginia.edu/lehmannlab/badchemistr y.html
(courtesy of the University of Virginia Chemistry Dept.)

Increased pressure would also require that the temperature be LOWER to keep it frozen. This is where barometric pressure and meteorology would come into play. It's the friction of the air against the surface of the ice that would be at issue.

I can't claim to have the precise answer to your question, but I can point out a few things that won't work.

Re:Strange ice

[jae471]

There is a problem with the UVA page -- Ice skates blades aren't flat in any dimension, so you get nowhere near 20cmx3mm in contact when gliding. A hockey skate probably has 8cm of length in contact, and a figure skate about 12cm. The blade itself is hollowed down the middle, like an upside-down U. A very shallow hollow will have a 7.5cm radius, a figure skate about 4-5cm, a normal hockey hollow is closer to 2.5cm, and a suicidally deep hollow has a 1cm radius (But its all a matter of personal preference, really.)

Effectively, a hockey skate will actually have about 8cm*1.5mm = 12 sq mm in contact with the ice, not 60 sq mm. That's a 5x increase in pressure over what the UVACD says, meaning instead of 12 atms (their number), you get 60 atms. Still not enough to raise it one degree (there are other factors -- frictional melting and the temperature of the blade), but their assumptions are wrong.

The blades also bend ALOT when skating, more than you might think. Whenever there is a turn cut in the ice, the blade deforms to match it. And bending a metal creates heat.

As an aside, the best ice for skating should be around 18F (as measured by return brine temp, so the surface will be a few degrees warmer), with an ambient air temp of about 32-40F, and 20-30% relative humidity. Above 40F or 30% humidity, either the surface starts to melt, or water condenses on the ice.

Now that was completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but I had to rant. Sorry.

Re:Strange ice

[Control Group]

No, it wouldn't.

Of the fourteen types of water ice, only one (Ice Ih, which is also the form that is commonly found on Earth, though Ice Ic can occasionally be found in the upper atmosphere) is less dense than the liquid form. The others form at various temperatures and pressures, and are, in that their density is greater than liquid water, more normal than "common" ice.

Re:Strange ice

[Control Group]

Sorry for the double post, but it occurs to me that I misinterpreted your question. If you mean, would the pressure prevent the ice from forming the specific crystal structure that makes ice less dense than water, the answer is yes. But then, so would the ambient temperature.

The pressure will not prevent the ice from forming a crystal structure (it will, in fact, cause the formation of such a structure), but that structure will be more dense than liquid water.

The latter is the answer to the question I thought you asked, the former is the answer to the question you actually asked. Sorry 'bout that.

Re:Strange ice

[Doctor Faustus]

My instinct was that the pressure would force water into its densest possible form, and that wouldn't be the kind of ice we're familiar with here on earth. Yes, you answered that, thanks.

Re:Strange ice

[evil_Tak]

However, skating is possible at temperatures much lower than 20C

I certainly hope so! I'm not about to try skating at any temperature above 0C.

Re:Strange ice

[LionMage]

Um, your temperature conversions are wrong. 4F = approx. -15.6C, and 20C = 68F. The conversion equations can be found many places, such as here.

I also initially disbelieved your explanation, since my high school physics textbook unambiguously attributed the ice skating phenomenon to regelation, but further digging did turn up this little gem (and a related tidbit showing a classic regelation experiment):

Beware: if you search for ice regelation on google, some web sites propagate the error that the mechanism of ice skaing is regelation. As you can calculate in the question sheet, regelation does not give sufficient depression of the melting point over long enough for it to be important for ice skating.

And from the related page:

It seems clear from the literature (but disappointing) that regelation is not the cause of the ice being slippery when you ice skate. A paper published in Physics Today in December 2005 and listed in the references for this demonstration, discusses the concept, initially proposed by Faraday, that a microscopic layer of water, found on ice even at very low temperatures, is responsible for ice being slippery. On the other hand, regelation apparently is a primary contributing cause for the motion of glaciers, as discussed in one of the references.

Another curious side note from that last link:

There is a lot of discussion about whether this really demonstrates regelation, but rather simply conduction of heat by the wire to the ice cube so that it will melt, followed by freezing over of the cut due to conduction of heat away from the cut to the surrounding ice.

Interestingly enough, a fellow student in high school eliminated this potential problem when she recreated the regelation experiment -- she put the entire experimental apparatus inside a freezer unit with excellent temperature control, so she was able to vary temperature as well as the masses attached to the metal wire, and she was able to insure that the masses and wire were at the same approximate temperature as the block of ice.

More info can be found here, which gives some interesting extra info (such as: the optimum temperature for speed skating with minimal friction is -7C).

Alien World?

[Karganeth]

I'm sorry, but why is it referred to as an "Alien World"? Using the term "alien world" is somewhat confusing given the context of new research about planets...

Re:Alien World?

[dreamchaser]

It's part of the propaganda for when we start invading other worlds. We'll just tell all the sheeple that there are illegal aliens on those planets that must be stopped.

Re:Alien World?

[fucksl4shd0t]

Er, all tht does is encourage them to build a stupid fence around pluto.

The variety of different planest already known...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is suprising to me. It amazes that there is such a variety of different atmospheres and terrains even within our own solar system. The dynamic range of planet building is astounding, considering they all basically started from the same place. How is it possible that so many different types of planets are possible, when you start with essentially the same conditions? Small chanes in randomness really effect the planetary building system, even when the system is so large. Really incredible.

Geothermal Ocean vents ~400 C

[us7892]

Life can exist in that environment. It does here on Earth.

http://science.enotes.com/earth-science/geothermal -deep-ocean-vents

Re:Geothermal Ocean vents ~400 C

[saider]

Bacteria here on earth can exist in "solid" rock and have been found in mines many kilometers below the surface. There is speculation that organisms like this can seed other planets when the rocks are tossed into space by an asteroid hit.

Note that rock is generally not "solid" and has many small fissures and faults which can allow for limited movement.

Re:Geothermal Ocean vents ~400 C

[us7892]

Wow, such harsh comments. I always read the article.

Even if water is abundant in this planet, the conditions would not be right for life to exist there, she says. It would be too hot, and it is not even clear if any of the water could be in liquid form, although deep inside where the pressure goes up, there could be a region where the water is in a quasi-liquid state. "It could pass through a strange region where it's not quite solid and not quite liquid

They aren't quite sure what they have in this planet. I don't think it's too far fetched to believe a narrow layer of super hot water may exist, with some minerals, in which case, life could exist in some form.

Not ice

[markov_chain]

The solid/liquid phase transition line for water moves toward lower temperatures as pressure goes up, so ice shouldn't be able to form at 300C regardless of pressure. Other than the title there is no mention of this "hot ice." The relevant quote mentions something more reasonable, namely, the supercritical fluid phase:

and it is not even clear if any of the water could be in liquid form, although deep inside where the pressure goes up, there could be a region where the water is in a quasi-liquid state. "It could pass through a strange region where it's not quite solid and not quite liquid," she says.

Re:Not ice

[jimstapleton]

I belive that is only applicable for Ice I[h] (normal ice). One property for such phase transition diagrams is that the solid is less dense than the liquid, rather than the reverse being true. There are several crystaline (and possibly non-crystaline?) forms of ice, which are more dense than water at the same pressure. These types of ice wouldn't match that phase diagram and could exist.

Re:Not ice

[loafula]

there are actually 14 different types of solid water. my guess is they're talking about Amorphous ice ..wikipedia. Also, I believe the 300C temperature is that of the water vapour in the atmosphere.

Re:Not ice

[markov_chain]

You're right, I guess I should have consulted the latest available phase diagram! Water is so strange.

Re:Not ice

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Isn't not quite solid not quite liquid known as Jelly/Jello/Gel?

Re:Not Ice

[east coast]

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.

Re:Not ice

[farker haiku]

Maybe you should read the category labeled Exotic ice in the article..


But the high pressures in the planet's interior would compress the water so much that it would stay solid even at hundreds of degrees Celsius - the expected temperatures inside the planet. There are a variety of exotic 'hot ice' states possible in such conditions, with names like 'Ice VII' and 'Ice X'.

Re:Not ice

[jimstapleton]

The problem isn't the latest phase diagram - every phase diagram easily obtainable, even the latest, would probably be for normal ice - the same that you have seen. You would need a special phase diagram showing the various types of ice (or at least one not noraml) to get this information.

Re:Not Ice

[Have Brain Will Rent]

I look at all the space announcements as mere conjecture, I mean, all these astrophysicist guys are looking at is light waves in a telescope or radio waves right?

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!

Re:Not Ice

[pclminion]

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.

Re:Not Ice

[Loke the Dog]

Solid water is always ice.

Re:Not ice

[mybecq]

You would need a special phase diagram showing the various types of ice (or at least one not noraml) to get this information.

Such as something like this: http://www.chemicalogic.com/images/phase_diagram.g if

Re:Not Ice

[Gilmoure]

He was the villain that kicked Superman's ass.

Re:Not ice

[Boronx]

Why are Ice II and IV left out of that diagram?

Re:Not ice

[Khashishi]

This one is better, and it's got crystal structures http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html

Re:Not Ice

[magarity]

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?
 
You're thinking inside the box of the liquid form of H2O as the definitive substance just because that's how you typically encounter it. So instead think 'water' is the liquid state of H2O at whatever temp (and it can be far below 0C and still be liquid if its moving fast enough) and 'ice' is the solid version and 'vapor' is the gaseous state. The three states come about at different temperatures under different conditions in pressure and temperature. Now you'll see that your question's answer can only be the second choice.

Re:Not ice

[hcdejong]

there are actually 14 different types of solid water

And the Eskimos have names for all of them?

Re:Not Ice

[east coast]

Now you'll see that your question's answer can only be the second choice.

Uh, yeah... that's what I said in a more roundabout way by presenting the phases concept (triple point).

Re:Not ice

[bucuo]

as I'm sure my fellow chem nerd slashdotters are saying over and over in other posts: "No, at the pressures we're talking about here the 3-phase diagram is insufficient. Check the real thing:"

http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html

And anybody who talks about critical temperatures and pressures in relation to whether a solid forms is wrong, you can still make a solid above the critical T/P.

Of Course!

[pragma_x]

I always wondered where deep-fried ice-cream came from.

Obligatory Comment

[drinkypoo]

the Z-machine at Sandia is able (at least) to form Ice VII

As long as they don't devise the machine capable of making Ice IX, it's all good.

Re:Obligatory Comment

[morgan_greywolf]

Is it just me or was that a reference to Cat's Cradle?

Re:Obligatory Comment

[MadUndergrad]

It was. Incidentally, there really is an ice IX, but it's not the lowest-energy state that the book's ice IX would have to be for it to act like it did.

Re:Obligatory Comment

[EchaniDrgn]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX ain't so bad. Ice-nine is the bad one.

Re:The Joke Section...

[InfiniteSingularity]

In Soviet Russia, ice is hot!

Re:The Joke Section...

[massivefoot]

In Soviet Russia, ice melts YOU!

Oh shi...

[ebingo]

Must be hell frozen!

Re:Oh shi...

[goldaryn]

Must be hell frozen!

Maybe all those girls will sleep with you now..

Icy Hot sues planet

[192939495969798999]

this just in, the makers of Icy Hot sue the rogue planet for DMCA copyright infringement via slashdot's digital summary of the material known as 'hot ice'.

Forget ice-nine

[cxreg]

this is ice forty two

Finally makes sense...

[hal2814]

Finally, the "Hot Hail" in Flash Gordon makes sense. Ming was just showering us with some hot ice!

Re:solid??? not liquid?

[maxwell demon]

I guess in school you only learned about one type of ice, namely the one which is commonly found on earth.

Ice-Nine is real!

[ZirbMonkey]

Aside from the Cat's Cradle poke...

I'm pretty sure that I learned from thermo class that water is technically a "supercritical fluid" at those conditions. A solid implies a defined structure due to intermolecular bonding of nearby molecules. At those temperatures and pressures, water would just be a super-viscous fluid. Even magma rock stays liquid despite being thousands of miles underground.

A helpful tip for songwriters:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't have anything worth saying, please don't write a song about it.

Re:A helpful tip for songwriters:

[smittyoneeach]

You managed to annihilate heavy metal, country/western, and rap in one swipe.
Good work.

Now she's a real estate agent...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

"Ice" from American Gladiators

Now she's a real estate agent...
http://www.tv.com/tracking/viewer.html?sls_id=7350 &ref_type=104&ref_id=2723&tag=updates;title;0 ...so if you sign a buyer's agency you'll at least get her autograph.

Philosophical question

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, we have heard that you can be in either:
        1. Hot water, or,
        2. on thin ice ,
But what should humanity make of being on or in HOT ICE?
 
NASA, please provide us with an answer. A solution to this dilemma cannot wait.

Re:Philosophical question

[slew]

According to this paper, if you are in hot ice, you'd be zapped or fried (maybe that's the same thing) ;^)

Re:Philosophical question

[Profane MuthaFucka]

These idiots have already shown us the way.

http://www.icyhotstunta.com/

Re:Philosophical question

[Barryke]

Thank you for showing me that pathetic websites still exist. I started wondering if __* was the only one left. *) left out, for i do not want to hurt your eyes above threshold.

Sort of obvious, isn't it?

[Progman3K]

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...

Re:The Joke Section...

[insanemime]

In other news... Icy Hot CEO's caught sabotageing NASA equipment.

water phase diagram

[excelsior_gr]

The critical point of water is at 647 K (374 C) and 22.1 MPa. This means that a temperature of 300 C is actually subcritical. No matter how high the pressure gets, water will NOT come in the supercritcal area of its phase diagram for that temperature. Moreover, due to the fact that water molecules form hydrogen bonds (this is why the density of ice is lower than the one of liquid water), the melting line of water goes towards lower temperatures with increasing pressure. Therefore, water at 300 C is liquid. Pediod.

Check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram

Re:water phase diagram

[Anonymous Coward]

The phase diagram in that wikipedia article you referenced is a generic one. Water's phase diagram is much more interesting. Note in particular the phases "available" at 575K (300 C): ice VII forms at 10 GPa; at lower pressures water, and (below 10 MPa) steam phases exist, and at higher pressures ice X (ca. 100 GPa) and XI (ca 800 GPa) phases.

Re:water phase diagram

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I appear to have left of the hyperlink in that post.

Re:water phase diagram

[malvidin]

Ok. But the 300 C value is from the surface. The interior is presumed to be hotter, and an increase of only 100 degrees is not that hard to believe.

Thanks for the good information, but don't be so sure about it being liquid. Comma,

Ice Polymorphism

[Jabba_the_Butt]

A fantastic H2O Phase Diagram can be found here (http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html). At 300C (573 K) you can have ice; you just need a lot of pressure. That kind of pressure is in the several gigapascal range (x10^9 Pa, 1 GPa145,000 psi). Any ice that has a designation (e.g. Ice I, Ice Ih, Ice II, III, V, VII, X, etc.) has a set crystal structure. As you can see on the phase diagram you can have ice at very high temperatures if you have enough pressure. What is present on the planet mentioned in the article is strictly dependent on the pressure and temperature conditions there, which we do not really know.

I've GOT TO CALL the prom queen from HighSchool

[RembrandtX]

I have got to call the prom queen from highschool, because apparantly hell *CAN* freeze over.

Re:I've GOT TO CALL the prom queen from HighSchool

[zippthorne]

Hell freezes over just about every year. Your prom queen friend sure has some 'splainin' to do.

Re:The Joke Section...

[magarity]

In Soviet Russia, ice melts YOU!
 
I suppose technically this is correct since by its melting ice performs a cooling function. Be we don't really think ice as performing a melting function. Perhaps the more correct would be:
 
'On Faraway Planet, you cool off ice!'

Outlaw Star Fans:

[bazald]

Hot Ice Hilda is alive and well after all. And Gene was getting all worked up over nothing...

Re:Outlaw Star Fans:

[dltaylor]

So, instead of falling into the star, she went into orbit. OK, but how did she bloat to 22 earth-mass? Are there that many hot-fudge sundaes in near-stellar environments?

Re:Outlaw Star Fans:

[bazald]

The explosion she set off in her mouth must have counted for a lot of calories.

P.S. I'm honored to receive a response from someone with an id <= 10000. Many thanks.

Gives me a new perception

[Tribbin]

Gives me a new perception of 'Hell is frozen over!'.

Correct me if I am wrong

[TheRealMindChild]

Correct me if I am wrong, please. When water molecules turn to ice as we know it, it becomes a hexagon structure of linked molecules. My impression is that water, under high pressure, while "solid", wouldn't form this structure. Could we really then call it "Ice"?

Re:Correct me if I am wrong

[Control Group]

Yes, we can.

In fact, there are two types of ice that occur naturally on this planet, traditional hexagonal ice (Ice Ih) and ice with a cubic lattice (Ice Ic (I'll avoid the too-obvious "Ice Ic, baby" joke, here. You're welcome)).

According to that Wikipedia page, there are 14 different forms of ice which occur at varying temperatures and pressures. "Common" ice, Ice Ih, is, in fact, the odd one out in some respects - for example, it's the only one that is less dense than liquid water.

Hotice: INRA bioweapon centre

[meringuoid]

Was I the only one who immediately remembered flying to the Hotice star system, there to raid the INRA bioweapons facility and steal the antidote to the mycoid weapon that had destroyed all the Thargoids' hyperdrives, and then heading back to Miackce to deliver it to the alien overlords and receive, in exchange for my betrayal of all humanity, the most powerful starship in the game?

... I probably was, wasn't I?

Vapour planet

[suv4x4]

Jack: Here's the new material "New planet made of vapour under pressure".

Chief: Damn it, that sounds dry. We need to get Bob, our marketing-slash-copywriter-slash-pr guy fix it a little.

Jack: But it...

Bob: Yep, ok.. Lemme think, vapour under pressure, how much pressure? So much that it's the same density as hard material

Jack: Lots of pressure, but to be hard it...

Bob: Good enough for me. So it's kinda like ice, isn't it.. "New planet made of hard vapour", wait.. I got it "New planet made of hot ice"!

Chief: Amazing!

Jack: It's totally not "ice" dude...

Bob: Whatever.. but it's still too pedestrian, "new planet". We gotta hint there's something more interesting on there, "alien planet", right.. "alien world". Sounds more epic. "Alien world made of hot ice!".

Chief: Perfect! We want to stress how odd all of this is. You know, not your run-of-the-mill hot ice planet though. Put "strange" in front, strange stuff is interesting.

Bob: "Strange alien world made of hot ice!"

Chief: Perfect!!! Start the presses.

Jack: Sigh...

Re:Vapour planet

[Control Group]

While amusing, your post is fairly inaccurate. "Hot ice" is a perfectly accurate description of the substance. Or at least, so says Wikipedia. And, if you're not down with the Wiki, arstechnica indicates that Nature also considers "hot ice" a legitimate term.

Ahh the memories

[GodfatherofSoul]

This reminds me of an "experiment" I did when I was 4 or 5. My mom would always tell me to use cold water when filling the ice tray. One day I decided to make hot ice by using hot water. Alas, I failed but it's good to know I was on to something!

Re:Ahh the memories

[largesnike]

Y'know, that reminds me of a childhood experiment of my own. You see, I really liked orange juice and I really liked milk. Imagine, I said to myself, if you combined them. Well, I didn't say that it was a successful experiment, and, well, I know I'm off topic, but...

Re:Ahh the memories

[mqduck]

Actually, orange juice and soy milk (dunno about real milk) is pretty good.

"hot ice"...

[M8e]

Hilda?

Old and busted. Vonnegut covered it first.

[camusflage]

Vonnegut wrote about Ice-nine in Cat's Cradle.

Oh, that was fictional??

So wait...

[arclyte]

If I put this in my drink, will it heat it up or cool it down?

"Honey, can you get me some ice for my drink? It's too cold..."

And so...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I guess all you guys who say, yeah, "when Hell freezes over," are shittin' bricks now, eh?

Re:And so...

[weszz]

not really...

ever been here?

Hell, MI

Cake?

[kannibul]

I guess they'll need to update the cake recipie for over 10,000 PSI.

not "Hot Grits"?

[justo]

can you pour hot ice down a man's pants?

The 22-Earth-mass planet

[SirJere]

The 22-Earth-mass planet I'm not familiar with that unit, could I get that in empire states or blue whales?

In a way it is.

[WindBourne]

CO2/Methane in the ocean depths? It is under enough pressure that it is turned to ice. That is what W. and his team are hoping to mine shortly (and trade all the methane with CO2).

damned article doesn't answer

[Khashishi]

What is the pressure we are talking about here? 10000 atm? 100000 atm?

Re:damned article doesn't answer

[Jabba_the_Butt]

That depends on which form of ice you want to look at. Different ice structures (polymorphs) are stable at different pressures and temperatures. For example, at room temperature, Ice VII would require at least ~22000 atm to be stable. As temperature increases the pressure needed to keep that same ice structure increases.

Mmmmm

[Necrotica]

Hot ice, eh? Betcha it would go good in a spicy Bloody Mary.

Re:The Joke Section...

[moxley]

In fascist America, these jokes are getting kinda old...... (although, every one in a while if the "ISR" joke is good enough I actually hear it in a Russian accent in my head...then I still laugh....)

no subject

[slapout]

"scorching hot ice"

This is just scientists making educated guesses with little information. I say we start sending probes out to get detailed information about what's there.

Re:Could actually be an Ice IX

[reverseengineer]

There is an Ice-IX, but it only exists at a combination of very low temperature (less than 140K) and very high pressure (~300MPa). Raise the temperature, and there will be a conversion to another polymorph of ice (or to liquid water). This site has some good information on the phases of water, especially the ice polymorphs.

In other news...

[Znrch]

We can now divide by zer-

Wouldn't the real news be

[Kelz]

That there's water on another planet? And as such nearly proves that there is water on other planets, and possibly some are temperate enough to support life?

Critical point irrelevant

[goodben]

There is only a critical point between the gas and liquid phases. Solid phases do not have critical points with other phases. The solid-liquid phase boundry continues, it just isn't always demarcated due either to running off the edge of the chart or lack of data.

And the link you point to doesn't have any information on water phases. Another comment points to this page which has a really nice water phase diagram. http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html As you can see there are several solid phases that can exist at 573 K at somewhere over 1000 atmospheres (10^9 Pascals).