Scientists create mysterious HOT black ice by "freezing water" with giant lasers

By zapping the water with lasers, the researchers were able to observe an "exotic" hot ice that they thought could exist in most of the universe.

The results, published in Nature by scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, also allow to observe the characteristics of a substance called superionic ice, created by the same lab last year .

Now, using giant lasers to quickly freeze frozen water, scientists say they have been able to observe the microscopic structure of the hybrid substance, which acts as both a solid and a liquid.

"We wanted to determine the atomic structure of superionic water," said LLNL physicist Federica Coppari, co-author of the document.

"But given the extreme conditions under which this elusive state of matter is predicted to be stable, compressing water at such pressures and temperatures and simultaneously taking snapshots of the atomic structure was an extremely difficult task requiring a concept. innovative experiment. "

To conduct their observations, the researchers claim to have used one of the world's most powerful lasers, the OMEGA laser, at the University of Rochester's Laser Energy Lab.

The six lasers were used to generate shock waves and compress the water up to 1 to 4 million times the atmospheric pressure of the Earth and between 3,300 to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

To capture the actual structure of newly formed superionic water ice, the researchers used 16 additional laser pulses to blow an iron sheet that creates X-rays able to illuminate the crystals.

"The X-ray diffraction patterns we measured are an unequivocal signature of dense ice-crystal formation during ultra-rapid shock wave compression, demonstrating that the nucleation of solid ice into the atmosphere is the most important step in the process. Liquid water is fast enough to be observed at the nanosecond of experience, "Coppari said.

The experiment adds not only to the growing body of scientific evidence and knowledge around the mysterious superionic ice, but could also have implications for the core of the ice giants, such as Uranus and Neptune.

While previous hypotheses posited the hypothesis that planetary nuclei might be similar to Earth's, the discovery shows that the mysterious icy substance observed by researchers might be a more likely candidate.

"It is probably better to imagine that superionic ice would flow in the same way as the Earth's mantle, made up of solid rocks, but flows and supports large-scale convection movements on very long geologic time scales", said Marius, physicist and co-author of LLNL Millot.

"This can dramatically affect our understanding of the inner structure and evolution of icy giant planets, as well as all their many extra-solar cousins."

Evidence of the substance confirms a projection dating back to 1988, when scientists had predicted that the pressurization of oxygen and hydrogen into the nuclei of aquatic planets would create superionic ice.