Finally a strange ice has been observed that can be formed on foreign planets

A strange type of ice that is thought to inhabit deep in the oceans of foreign planets has finally proven to exist.

For the first time, researchers have directly observed a type of hybrid phase of water called plastic ice, which is formed at high temperatures and pressures and exhibits traits of solid ice and liquid water. Observations, reported February 12 at Nature, It can help researchers better understand the internal architecture and processes of other worlds in our solar system and beyond, some of which can be habitable.

Plastic ice is “something intermediate between a liquid and a crystal, you can imagine it is softer when squeezing it,” says physicist Livia Bove of Sapienza University of Rome. It’s called plastic ice because it is easier formed or deformed than typical crystalline ice, displaying a property that scientists call plasticity, she says. “As something that can [squeeze] Through a hole and go out, even if it is still strong. “

Most of the ice on the Earth’s surface – including ice cubes, glaciers and snow – consists of water molecules arranged in a hexagonal grate resembling a confusion. Scientists classify this ordinary ice as Ice LH. But in addition to IH IH, there are at least 20 known phases of ice that form under different pressure and temperature conditions. In pressures over 20,000 bars – or 20,000 kilograms per square inches – ice grates compress on ice VII, a polymorph with a dense structure, cubic, in which molecules are ordered like cubes in the ruby ​​cube. ICE VII has been found trapped in diamonds originating in the Earth’s mantle and is thought to occur within other planets. And Kurt Vonnegu fans may be interested in hearing that an IX IX was discovered in 1996, though it lacks the terrible ability to freeze the oceans.

There are also ice stages that are only theorized to exist. Over 15 years ago, computer simulations showed that when ICE VII is heated and subjected to extreme pressures, its individual water molecules should begin to rotate freely, as if a liquid, while occupying fixed positions, as in a solid. Since the hypothetical phase shared the same cubic crystal structure as ice VII, it became known as plastic ice VII. But because performing experiments at such high pressures was technically indisputable at the time, strong evidence of the existence of plastic ice extinguished scientists for years.

For the new study, Bove and colleagues used a relatively new tool at the Laue-Langevin Institute in Grenoble, France that is able to measure the movements of molecules under extreme pressures. In experiments, they directed a neutron beam in water samples and underwent samples at temperatures up to 326 ° C and pressure up to 60,000 bars. While the neutrons at the entrance interact with the water molecules in the samples, they gained or lost energy depending on how much the water molecules were moving and rotating before they were distributed towards a detector. Measurement of dispersed neutron energy allowed the BOVE team to characterize the movements of the molecules and identify the stage it had formed.

Over 177 ° C and over approximately 30,000 bars – about 28 times pressure at the deepest point in the Earth’s oceans – the team of bove observed an ice phase that possessed a cubic grille with water molecules that rotated as fast as in liquid water . They identified the phase as plastic ice VII, finally confirming its existence.

However, a observed detail left the forecasts. Instead of rotating freely, the water molecules seemed turned into sharp motions. As the molecules rotate, they break their hydrogen bonds with one neighbor just to return and connect rapidly to another, Bove explains.

Plastic ice VII may have existed during the early stages of Europe, Titan and other icy moons in our solar system, before all water had saved from their interior with high pressure, says planetary scientist Baptist Journaux of University of Washington in Seattle. New observations can help researchers unite history how these moons evolved into the world of the ocean they are today, he says.

And beyond our solar system, the strange ice can turn over at the bottom of the giant oceans in exoplanets, some of which are thousands of miles deep and potentially habitable, Journaux says. Investigating how easily Ice Plastic VII includes salts in its lattice can help determine if the presence of the strange phase increases the exchange of salts between the exoplanet sea and the oceans above, he says. “This would actually feed the ocean with more nutrients.”