Scientists have identified an unusual form of water ice that appears at a pressure of 219 gigapascals, a condition tied to the deep interiors of the ice giants, heise online reported on Sunday. The finding concerns an exotic ice phase, meaning a structural arrangement of water molecules that does not occur under everyday conditions on Earth's surface.
According to heise online, this ice exists at pressures far beyond those found in ordinary settings, placing it among the extreme states of matter that planetary researchers study. The report links the material directly to the interior environments of the ice giants, the large planets whose deep layers are dominated by water, ammonia and methane at high compression.
The headline figure of 219 gigapascals is the pressure at which this phase appears, though the source material does not specify the full experimental or theoretical method behind the result. What the report makes clear is the association between this ice form and the conditions inside those massive planets, where pressure climbs steeply with depth.
