We ’re used to the mind that ice is a good sign on exoplanets – despite the myriad ofweird and howling formsextraterrestrial specie could take , it ’s passably well bear thatalien living would require waterto evolve .
But a paper print this month inPhysical Review Letterssuggests that , under sealed conditions , the opponent might be true . A squad of physicists has finally solve a mystery surrounding a bizarre flesh of chalk – and it could have implications for the hunting for extraterrestrial life .
Now , what you think of as “ ice ” is really just one ofmany different phases . Virtually all ice on Earth , from the cubes in your drink to the glaciers in Antarctica , is technically ice Ih – the “ h ” stands for “ hexagon ” , the chassis the oxygen mote take as the piss freezes . Very at times , high-pitched in the standard atmosphere , Earth sees a 2nd form of ice : ice Ic , pronounced “ meth icy ” because , well , scientist love a good pun .
But under uttermost pressure , ice can form in any of 17 other phases . There ’s ice II , III , and so on , all the means up to ice XVI , each categorize by the conditions required for it to form . in the end , there’ssquare ice , see in 2014 , and amorphous ice , a form so eldritch and exotic thatit ’s technically categorized as methamphetamine hydrochloride .
Hiding in the eye of this list is ice VII . To form at way temperature , icing VII requires pressures 30,000 meter higher than at sea level , which is why it ’s only been found in pretty weird places – pin inside diamondsdeep within the Earth ’s mantle or in a lab trapping theworld ’s most powerful 10 - ray optical maser .
The problem is that various lab experiments on how ice VII forms have ended up with unlike results . One experiment , for example , found ice VII forms first on a nearby Earth’s surface , then spreads inwards . Others ground water samples stop dead evenly throughout in astonishingly truehearted times – some as agile as 10 nanoseconds .
To figure out this puzzle , the team used a mathematical model to look into nucleation – the first stage of freezing , when the water molecule commence to arrange themselves into the structure of a unanimous . By psychoanalyze this example under various conditions , they made a discovery that explains dozens of former experiments , according to astatement .
It turns out that , below a sure insistency threshold , frappe VII does indeed form from the outside and pass around inwards . But above this room access , the ice disseminate rapidly throughout the sample – withinbillionths of a irregular .
“ Our work shows that methamphetamine VII contour in a very unusual way – by pop into universe in flyspeck clump of about 100 molecules and then growing highly tight , at over 1,000 miles per hr [ 1,610 kilometers per hour ] ! , ” lead writer Jonathan Belof explained toPhysics Central .
But this discovery could be bad news for alien life .
Ice VII may be rare on Earth , but exogeologists think it subsist on wintry moons and major planet such as Europa – or the pot of “ sea macrocosm ” planets outside our Solar System . lately , these were suggested aspossible , if unexpected , candidates for life – but the team ’s find throws all that into question once again .
“ pee on these ocean worlds , under onslaught from other worldwide torso such as meteors or comets , undergoes vivid changes for which life might not survive , ” excuse Belof .
“ The shock waves launch by the explosion from these planetary impact consequence can compress water to a insistency over 10,000 times that found on the Earth ’s surface and cause the water to freeze out into … ice VII . ”
So could planets support any kind of aliveness under these extreme conditions ? The team go for their research will help rule the answer .
[ H / T : Motherboard ]
