Scientists Use High Pressure, Laser To Discover New Form of Ice That May be Common in Distant, Water-Rich Planets

Scientists have discovered a new form of ice that is impossible to exist on Earth and is believed to be common in distant, water-rich planets far out into the universe.

Before the launch of the Europa Clipper mission that will go to Jupiter's distant Moon and begin searching for sources of water that scientists speculate can be found under the surface in the form of ice, scientists have made a breakthrough with the new discovery.

New Form of Ice

Experts have been studying the properties of water that have been placed under very high pressure. They found that there is a new phase they now call "Ice-VIIt," which is an intermediate and tetragonal phase and it is between cubic phase, Ice-VII, and Ice-X.

Scientists said that the new form of ice is nearly impossible to find on the surface of the planet Earth but could be more common deep in the mantle. They said that it could also be regularly found in large moons and water-rich planets that are outside of our solar system.

A new method for measuring the properties of water under high pressure was pioneered by a study that was published in Physical Review B. Researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, led the study where the team squeezed water samples between the tips of two opposite-facing diamonds, as per India Today.

The ice was later subjected to a laser-heating technique that temporarily melted the substance before it immediately re-formed into a powder-like collection of tiny crystals. Scientists incrementally raised the pressure during their study, periodically blasting the ice with the laser.

Experts then observed the water ice make the transition from a known cubic phase into the completely new form of ice prior to transitioning to another known form of ice. A UNLV Ph.D. student, Zach Grande, led the study that also found that the transition to Ice-X, which is the phase where water stiffens aggressively, occurs at a much lower temperature than previously known.

Transition of Ice

According to SciTechDaily, the process of squeezing the water sample between the diamonds caused the oxygen and hydrogen atoms to form into a variety of different arrangements. With it, scientists found that Ice-X occurs at pressures nearly three times lower than what is currently believed, at 300,000 atmospheres instead of one million.

Previously, it was also thought that the transition pressure for Ice-X was somewhere between 40 and 120 gigapascals. However, Grande's team found in their study that the transition between Ice-VII and Ice-X actually occurred at roughly 30.9 gigapascals.

The team said that the finding should help resolve the debate about the Ice-X transition pressure. Ashkan Salamat, a physicist at the UNLV, said that Grande's work was able to demonstrate the reality of the transformation to an ionic state. He said that it was the missing piece and has become the most accurate measurement ever on the water at the given conditions.

Grande's team said that their findings could have significant implications for studying the interior conditions of other worlds in the universe. The abundance of Ice-VII could mean that there are better conditions suitable for the emergence of life, Science Alert reported.