Scientists Create a New Form of Ice At 2,357 Degrees Celsius
Longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from ScienceAlert: Scientists have now demonstrated one of the weirdest forms of ice yet -- under preposterous pressures up to 2.3 million atmospheres, and tremendous temperatures up to 2,630 kelvins (2,357 degrees Celsius, or 4,274 degrees Fahrenheit). [...] In their new experiments, a team led by physicist Alexis Forestier of the French…
Scientists have recently discovered an unprecedented form of ice that exists under extreme pressures and temperatures. Led by physicist Alexis Forestier of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, a team subjected minuscule samples of water to pressures up to 2.3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level, equivalent to the pressure at the center of Earth.
They also heated the samples to temperatures reaching 2,357 degrees Celsius, or 2,630 kelvins. Through their experiments, the researchers observed a previously unobserved crystal structure known as hexagonal close-packed, or hcp, ice. As this ice heated up, it demonstrated characteristics of superionic behavior, suggesting it entered the superionic state around 1,700 kelvins.
This finding, published in Physical Review Letters, sheds light on the mysterious superionic ice that is believed to exist deep within the interiors of Uranus and Neptune, potentially influencing the magnetic fields of these planets.
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