Posted on 11/07/2018 2:13:53 AM PST by BenLurkin
It forms at speeds of more than 1,000 mph (1,600 km/h), it lies deep beneath our feet, it could destroy hopes for alien life, and finally scientists understand how it works.
Back in March, researchers writing in the journal Science revealed that they have found the first evidence for this ice, called "Ice VII." Scientists had predicted its existence beforehand. Under the right conditions, it was believed, ice could form in a pool of water without a layer of heat at the leading edge of its growing surface. That along with super-intense pressures and temperatures would allow the ice to form without most of the usual brakes that slow its growth, Science Alert reported. It would also have a different crystal structure, or arrangement of atoms. Now, scientists say they've found that elusive ice for the first time in the frozen-water cores of diamonds that bubbled up from deep inside the Earth.
New research, published Oct. 10 in the journal Physical Review Letters, found that there are particular combinations of temperature and pressure at which Ice VII forms. The mysterious Ice VII begins to form at 20,700 times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level and 40.7 degrees Fahrenheit (4.9 degrees Celsius), and the pressure/temperature combinations get only more intense from there.
This could pose problems for the hunt for alien life, Physics Central reported. Pressure spikes say, from meteor impacts could cause the explosive formation of Ice VII on watery planets otherwise suited to alien life. But the mass formation of this cubic ice at ripping speeds would likely prevent any such life from forming or surviving. On worlds where this happens, life could get snuffed out before it really began.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Global....we have created universal cooling and it is all our fault.
Here's Vanilla Ice checking for Super Ice in his indoor pool. He's cool...
Need one of these to get started.
Now I know why I haven’t seen any Klingons lately.
What does “jazz cover” mean?
If only the Aliens had used oil, they would of survived.
Calling Kurt Vonnegut.
Could we use this ice to stop the caravan?
Nailed it! The grand “aah-whoom”
Loved that book.
But the scenario they outline does sound a lot like Ice-9 in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle...sure, Vonnegut was a lefty, but he was one of the best dark humorists in literary history, with a great imagination, especially in his first few books.
“This could pose problems for the hunt for alien life, Physics Central reported. Pressure spikes say, from meteor impacts could cause the explosive formation of Ice VII on watery planets otherwise suited to alien life. “
Aren’t they missing the fact that the ice formation requires extreme pressures as well, and if that was atmospheric pressure it is unlikely for any surface life to develop even without the super ice.
Didn’t Kurt Vonnegut write that book fifty years ago?
Thank you.
My first thought on resding the extract was - is this SciFi like ICE (?
That's why they've only been able to see it inside diamonds, which are the only things that could contain that sort of pressure.
Blame Irving Langmuir’s brother Arthur, the chemist. Kurt patterned his mad scientist Dr. Felix Hoenikker upon Arthur.
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