Under Extreme Pressure on Ice Giants, Water Ice Gets Weird

This image shows Uranus and Neptune, the Solar System's ice giants, as they're often shown. They're about the same size, but have different masses. The interior of both worlds are under extreme pressure, and new research shows how that might force water to behave in extreme ways. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

On Earth, water ice is simply water ice. But under extreme pressure, it takes on an unusual asymmetric form. It stops being molecular and its atoms are forced into a strange asymmetry.

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