Posted on 07/11/2017 12:30:59 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The scientists created the ice by exposing ordinary water to a sudden, intense, laser-generated shock wave, and they observed the formation of the superdense phase of ice, called ice VII, using rapid X-ray pulses to document its nearly instantaneous phase change. The transformation took place at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Linac Coherent Light Source — the world's most powerful X-ray laser.
"We're really excited about this work because it's the first diffraction evidence, or structural evidence, of seeing liquid water transform in real time, in situ, into a high-pressure crystalline phase," Arianna Gleason, lead author of the new work, told Space.com. "The implications for this work in the planetary science context and geoscience context, for icy satellites or icy large planetary bodies — say, the ice giants even in our own solar system — is really exciting." Gleason is a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a visiting scientist at Stanford University in California, where the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is located.
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Ordinary ice forms hexagonal crystals, but the form of ice the researchers investigated, ice VII, has a cubic structure. This form of ice is difficult to create and sustain in the lab, and until now, it's been impossible to measure its formation. However, researchers theorize that it forms briefly when comets or icy moons collide, affecting the way craters are shaped.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Stop before you get to ice 9.
You beat me to it. Bokonon would be proud.
Maybe they should have tried an ice maker from the freezer portion of a refrigerator. It makes ice cubes.
But seriously, ice does not form hexagons, hexagons are formed from water vapor which forms crystals when it suddenly freezes.
Big difference.
Beat me to it! Kurt was a startlingly accurate prognosticator.
We already have Gompers and our handicaps.
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