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Scientists Create a New Form of Matter: Superionic Water Ice (sciencemag.org)

According to The New York Times, scientists created a new form of water that simultaneously acts like a solid and liquid. "The substance, which consists of a fluid of hydrogen ions running through a lattice of oxygen, was formed by compressing water between two diamonds and then zapping it with a laser," reports Science Magazine. "That caused pressures to spike to more than a million times those of Earth's atmosphere and temperatures to rise to thousands of degrees, conditions scientists had predicted may lead to the formation of superionic ice. This kind of water doesn't exist naturally on Earth, the scientists report in Nature Physics, but it may be present in the mantles of icy planets like Neptune and Uranus."

2 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. The meaning of this? by KingAlanI · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It seems like this could be useful for studying Uranus and Neptune as well for potential innovations in materials science.

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    I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
  2. Wooder Ice by Bohnanza · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not as good as Rita's

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    Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.