Black, Hot ‘Superionic’ Ice May Be Nature’s Most Common Form of Water

Physicists have been after superionic ice for years — ever since a primitive computer simulation led by Pierfranco Demontis in 1988 predicted water would take on this strange, almost metal-like form if you pushed it beyond the map of known ice phases. Inside Uranus and Neptune, then, fluid layers might stop about 8,000 kilometers down into the planet, where an enormous mantle of sluggish, superionic ice like Millot’s team produced begins. Other planets and moons in the solar system likely don’t host the right interior sweet spots of temperature and pressure to allow for superionic ice.

Source: www.quantamagazine.org