Hard to believe, but scientists have confirmed the existence of “supernatural” hot ice – water that freezes but can maintain temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius.
This bizarre form of ice is likely due to the enormous pressure, and the findings of the experiment could shed light on the internal structure of giant ice planets like Uranus and Neptune.
Scientists have just created a strange type of ice.
On the Earth’s surface, the boiling and freezing points of water differ only slightly, usually water will boil when the temperature is hot enough and freeze when it is cold.
However, in the vacuum of space, water cannot exist in liquid form. It instantly boils and evaporates even at -270 degrees Celsius before turning into ice crystals.
In extremely high pressure environments, the opposite will happen: water solidifies, even at extremely high temperatures. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have observed this directly for the first time recently.
They created Ice VII , a form of ice that crystallizes above 30,000 times Earth’s atmospheric pressure, also known as supersonic ice .
This result gives clues to how Neptune and Uranus can have strange magnetic fields with tilts at bizarre angles and with equator lines that don’t encircle the planet.
The team’s research suggests these planets may have solid mantles, like Earth’s, but made of superheated supersonic ice instead of hot rock. Since supersonic ice is highly conductive, this could affect the magnetic fields of the planets.