As long as they aren't ILLEGAL Aliens, as ICE is going Medieval on them. :-)
Posted on 03/09/2018 10:09:59 AM PST by Red Badger
Trapped in the rigid structure of diamonds formed deep in the Earth’s crust, scientists have discovered a form of water ice that was not previously known to occur naturally on our planet.
The finding, published Thursday in Science, represents the first detection of naturally occurring ice-VII ever found on Earth. And as sometimes happens in the scientific process, it was discovered entirely by accident.
Ice-VII is about one and a half times as dense as the regular ice we put in our drinks and skate on in winter, and the crystalline structure of its atoms is different as well.
In normal ice, known as ice-I, the oxygen atoms arrange themselves in a hexagonal shape. In ice-VII these atoms are arranged in a cubic shape.
Oliver Tschauner, a professor of geoscience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explained that there are actually several known phases of water ice that form under different pressure and temperature conditions.
That’s unusual. Generally, when you subject a solid phase of matter to increasing amounts of pressure, the space between the chemical bonds will decrease a little, and the bonds will tilt slightly toward each other, said Tschauner, who led the new work. That’s called compressibility.
But water ice has very low compressibility. When it gets subjected to too much pressure, the atoms don’t scooch together. Instead, they rearrange themselves into different patterns.
For example, if you press down hard enough on ice-I, it will transform into ice-II, which has a rhombohedral structure. Increase the pressure once again and the atoms will rearrange themselves into ice-III, then IV, V, VI and VII.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
Well now they know it does
The sequel was inevitable…d
From the Futurama wiki Infosphere:
http://theinfosphere.org/War_Is_the_H-Word
“A sign outside the shop Fry and Bender are in at the start of the episode reads “Free bag of ice-9 with 6-pack”, a reference to the substance ice-9, created by Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat’s Cradle.”
Interesting juxtaposition with the topic of the article, since Vanilla Ice’s only hit grew out of sampling Bowie and Queen’s, “Under Pressure.”
THAT’S IT!
I didn’t have time to do more than a quick post.
THanks!
Thanks Red Badger. I hope I got in before the brain-dead chorus starts -- "this *proves* there's no life outside Earth!"
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Just to be fair and equitable, I'll post a link to my story about warm snow.
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