SellaTheChemistIf anyone is into #StrangeIce my friend and colleague Christoph Salzmann and I will be talking about one of the strangest of strange ices on BBC World Service's Inside Science later tonight, with additional ice talk from Europa and beyond. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct36b9
Our #StrangeIce paper is out in Science. Medium density amorphous ice. It doesn’t float. It doesn’t sink. The density is like water yet the atoms cannot move. It’s made by ball milling “normal” ice at -200 degrees and has lost almost all trace of its original crystalline structure. And if you squeeze it, it stores mechanical energy, an observation that may have implications for worlds like Europa where tidal forces drive mechanical shearing. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq2105
Kirk Smith@sellathechemist wow this is wild and super cool!
@kirk It was totally unexpected. Ironically, when Christoph put it in a grant proposal he was told that it wasn't worth doing as he'd only get smaller bits of regular ice. Then we got our hands on an abandoned cryomill and the first author Alex R-F spotted the progressive changes as he milled it.