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Strange Alien World Made of "Hot Ice"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the vanilla-considering-name-change dept.

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."

52 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting. by jshriverWVU · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    1. Re:Interesting. by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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?"

      --
      Apology to Ubuntu forum.
    2. Re:Interesting. by someone1234 · · Score: 3, Informative

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

      --
      Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
    3. Re:Interesting. by Control+Group · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --

      Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
    4. Re:Interesting. by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    5. Re:Interesting. by www.themodernman.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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

    6. Re:Interesting. by eln · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

    7. Re:Interesting. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2, Funny

      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

    8. Re:Interesting. by drasfr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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...

    9. Re:Interesting. by Gilmoure · · Score: 2, Funny

      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!

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    10. Re:Interesting. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:Interesting. by Gaijin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    12. Re:Interesting. by AJWM · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      --
      -- Alastair
    13. Re:Interesting. by fractalVisionz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    14. Re:Interesting. by malvidin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    15. Re:Interesting. by eclectus · · Score: 3, Informative

      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

      --
      This signature is a waste of 42 characters
  2. Hot Ice by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  3. Oh no! It's ice 9! by jimstapleton · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're doomed!

    --
    34486853790
    Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
  4. Re:Water? by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  5. Geothermal Ocean vents ~400 C by us7892 · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

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

  6. Not ice by markov_chain · · Score: 3, Informative
    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.
    --
    Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
    1. Re:Not ice by jimstapleton · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    2. Re:Not ice by loafula · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
    3. Re:Not ice by markov_chain · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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!
    4. Re:Not Ice by east+coast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.
    5. Re:Not Ice by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 2, Insightful
      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!

      --
      The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
    6. Re:Not Ice by pclminion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  7. Obligatory Comment by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  8. Re:Water? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Informative

    One word: spectroscopy.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  9. Oh shi... by ebingo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Must be hell frozen!

    1. Re:Oh shi... by goldaryn · · Score: 3, Funny

      Must be hell frozen!

      Maybe all those girls will sleep with you now..

  10. Re:Strange ice by HetMes · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  11. Icy Hot sues planet by 192939495969798999 · · Score: 2, Funny

    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'.

    --
    stuff |
  12. Re:Water? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.
    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  13. Finally makes sense... by hal2814 · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  14. A helpful tip for songwriters: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

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

  15. Philosophical question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Philosophical question by slew · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

    2. Re:Philosophical question by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 2, Funny

      These idiots have already shown us the way.

      http://www.icyhotstunta.com/

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
  16. Sort of obvious, isn't it? by Progman3K · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  17. water phase diagram by excelsior_gr · · Score: 2, Informative
    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

  18. Ice Polymorphism by Jabba_the_Butt · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  19. I've GOT TO CALL the prom queen from HighSchool by RembrandtX · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --

    --Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
  20. Correct me if I am wrong by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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"?

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    1. Re:Correct me if I am wrong by Control+Group · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      --

      Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
  21. Vapour planet by suv4x4 · · Score: 2, Funny

    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...

  22. Ahh the memories by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  23. Re:Strange ice by jae471 · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  24. Re:Water? by j00r0m4nc3r · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm not a flat-earther

    Burn the heretic!

  25. The 22-Earth-mass planet by SirJere · · Score: 2, Funny

    The 22-Earth-mass planet I'm not familiar with that unit, could I get that in empire states or blue whales?
  26. Re:Could actually be an Ice IX by reverseengineer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  27. Re:Strange ice by LionMage · · Score: 2, Informative
    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).