A Bizarre Form of Water May Exist All over the Universe (2019)

https://www.wired.com/story/a-bizarre-form-of-water-may-exist-all-over-the-universe

by arunbahl • 5 years ago

147 38 5 years ago

wired.com

throwaway81523• 5 years ago

2019

pif2• 5 years ago

2019... so what?

Chemistry didn't change a lot in the last two years, thus such an article is as good as it had been published yesterday.

geranim0• 5 years ago

Standard procedure for titles

adwn2• 5 years ago

You've been active here for 9 years and haven't noticed yet that posts from previous years get a [year] tag in their title?

generalizations• 5 years ago

Superionic ice. See for details: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1114-6

hpb42• 5 years ago

And also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superionic_water

ohuf• 5 years ago

I just read "Black Ice" and it comes to my mind that William Gibson once more was way ahead of his time in 1984, writing "Neuromancer" ;)

martincmartin• 5 years ago

Ice-nine?

Update: I originally wrote ice-9, which it turns out is ambiguous. I meant the one from Cat's Cradle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_Cradle

robbedpeter• 5 years ago

Ice 18 - ice 9 irl is boring, unfortunately.

mint27• 5 years ago

It’s funny that scientists actually thought an ice nine type situation had a minuscule but non-zero chance of occurring when they set off the first nuclear bomb: the entire atmosphere would ignite.

pfdietz• 5 years ago

No, they didn't. They did calculations showing it was impossible, even with very generous assumptions of cross sections and physical processes (like cooling of the plasma by radiation). They would not have done the test if there was any chance that could have happened.

blululu• 5 years ago

Nautilus recently had a great article about this state of water in the context of our solar systems ice giants Neptune and Uranus: http://m.nautil.us/issue/102/hidden-truths/the-planets-with-... I think the line that really stood out to me is ‘in most of the universe rivers of water and coal are rare and ice XVIII and diamonds are common’

lisper2• 5 years ago

Diamonds are actually common here on earth too. The idea that they are rare is propaganda spread by the DeBeers cartel.

jazzyjackson• 5 years ago

Diamonds are common in an economic sense, there's plenty to go around. But as far as planetary geology goes, diamond is a pretty small share of the crust. I suppose there may be large diamonds in the mantle, that would be cool to see.

But maybe it is similar across the galaxy, except for the odd moon-sized diamond here and there, a light dusting of micro-diamonds.

edgedetector• 5 years ago

This article claims that the substance conducts electricity through the movement of protons, but last I checked, protons have extremely strong bonds to the nucleus. Most substances conduct electrons. Anyone want to shed some light on whether the article's claim is actually true?

If so, are there other such substances that conduct electricity with protons? What is the electrical resistance of such substances? I feel it should be extremely high due to the increased mass of the protons.

Chris2048• 5 years ago

last I checked, protons have extremely strong bonds to the nucleus

according to the article:

The oxygen atoms form a cubic lattice, but the hydrogen atoms spill free, flowing like a liquid through the rigid cage of oxygens

Hydrogen consists of a nucleus of just one proton.

I feel [electrical resistance] should be extremely high

electrical resistance measures the opposition to a flow of current, whereas electrical reactance measures the opposition to a change in current.

If you are thinking about momentum, do you mean reactance?

Thiez• 5 years ago

I wonder if heavy water would also be able to turn into this form of ice. Would a nucleus of one proton and one neutron more through the lattice with the same ease? Would heavy superionic ice conduct electricity as well?

dnautics• 5 years ago

responding to:

protons have extremely strong bonds to the nucleus

Protons are chemical shorthand for the H+ atomic ion. They are bound to the fluffy outer electron shells of oxygen atoms in water.

If so, are there other such substances that conduct electricity with protons?

This is basically how the inside of some fuel cells work (note that there is a counter-flow, which is the "useful electricity" of electrons that travels OUTSIDE the fuel cell, but inside of the fuel cell the electricity flow is via H+)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-exchange_membrane_fuel_...

burnished3• 5 years ago

First, this is an exotic material, so you should expect some weird stuff.

Second but probably more importantly you are correct that protons and neutrons are strongly bonded as part of a nucleus, what I think you are missing is that hydrogen molecules are essentially free-ranging protons and do not experience nuclear bonds with oxygen molecules as part of water, they are instead electrically bonded. It is not incorrect and even somewhat common to refer to hydrogen as being a proton, because typically it is. Sometimes you'll get heavier hydrogen with neutrons, but mostly you don't. Hydrogen also has a difficult time trapping and keeping electrons, so seeing it as a sort of 'hanger on' proton when its bonded is normal too.

I'm not aware of any thing that we humans use where a proton is the primary charge-carrier. I also won't speculate as to what sort of material properties they would have. If your thesis is 'protons as charge carriers is extremely unusual' then yes you would be correct. The reason that 'most substances conduct electrons' is because metals already conduct charge, which you are probably familiar with as the 'sea of electrons' theory, and semiconductors also use electrons or electron analogues as their charge carrier.

Does that answer your questions/doubts?

perihelions• 5 years ago

Proton conductor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafion

excalibur• 5 years ago

although it has never been seen until now, scientists think it might be among the most abundant forms of water in the universe.

Definitely top 10

A Bizarre Form of Water May Exist All over the Universe (2019)

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