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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

Oh no! It's ice 9!

[jimstapleton]

We're doomed!

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.

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: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:Water?

[MightyMartian]

One word: spectroscopy.

Oh shi...

[ebingo]

Must be hell frozen!

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: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.

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!