Scientists of the Argon National Laboratory in the United States reproduced the unusual form of dark ice, which exists in the center of such planets as Uranus and Neptune. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Physics.
It is known that the superior ice is formed at extremely high temperatures and pressures, for example, deep inside the planets relating to ice giants. Due to such extreme conditions, it is very difficult to obtain exotic ice in the laboratory, and before it was able to recreate only a second in the passage of the shock wave through a drop of water. However, in the new work, scientists have found a way to create and maintain hot superior ice for a long time to explore it.
For this purpose, researchers used APS – a source of synchrotron radiation in the Argonne Laboratory. This accelerator accelerates electrons to speeds close to the speed of light to generate X-ray beams. With the help of X-rays, they managed to determine the location of atoms inside the sample of ice, compressed between two diamond anvils and heated to extreme temperatures.
Although theoretical scientists predicted the phase of superionic ice, most of the models were believed that it does not appear at a pressure of 50 gigapascals. In the experiment, the phase was achieved at 20 gigapascals. It turned out that in this state the ice becomes less dense, but much darker, because otherwise interacts with the light. A full spectrum of chemical and physical properties of superion ice is still to be learned.