If you think we know all there is to know about water, think again. Scientists claim they have created a totally new alloy of hydrogen and oxygen molecules by splitting water.

It takes high-energy X-rays and an extremely high pressure, but the end result is a solid mixture of H2 and 02 that has never been identified before, they say. The discovery could change our understanding of the complex chemistry of water.

The new alloy is "a highly energetic material", says Wendy Mao at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, who led the research. "It may help us find a way of storing energy."

Mao?s team subjected water to a pressure 170,000 times greater than atmospheric pressure at sea level. Then they bombarded it with X-rays, causing the water molecules to split and reform into a previously unknown crystalline solid made of H2 molecules and 02 molecules.

For the rest of the story:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10391-brand-new-substance-created-from-water.html

Interesting find, Dan. Thanks for posting.

They made "several nanograms" at 2.5 million psi by exposure to several hours of 10 KV X-rays in a diamond anvil press. Pray tell Uncle Al how this translates to "It may help us find a way of storing energy." Let's make potato batteries instead.

When the Wright Brothers flew their first flight ... were you standing there saying:

"How will this ever usher in an era where people move between any two cities on earth in a matter of hours?"

It is basic research.

The fact that some promotional fluff was added in does not discount the value of newly discovered chemistry.

Seems to me those pressures might well exist in a number of places in our solar system. Think we will find potatos in Jupiter's core?

kudos to both you and al...

and after amaranth...yeah, nice find

thanx

"Potatoes." One needs differentiate among real variables, decimal trim, and fluff. Basic research is always interesting. Knowledge builds, interacts, and blooms further. To claim fashionable relevance is corruption.

Diamonds are found in what were upwelling mantle explosions from deep crustal rifts. Your average diamond is a billion years old or more. The diamond stability zone is a mere 80-100 miles under your brogans.

Given an extra billion years, what is the average in situ diamond size today? Bowling balls? We could study, model, and pontificate over accretion and erosion. Given that technology cannot begin to imagine reaching 100 miles down... what difference does it make? Cornell University abuts a large kimberlite dike. This is interesting for the (paleo)geology but not for university finances - it's not diamondiferous.

Diamonds are not rare. They are common on earth and they are considered to likely be even more common on other planets where the stability zone would be larger.

But are there bowling bowl sized diamonds? Might well be. Not that given how fragile they are they make up the ol' Kimberlite pipe intact but they may well exist.

With respect to Cornell however ... wrong pipe. They just found a 5.47 carat diamond in Arkansas.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/21/diamond.ap/index.html

The largest diamond ever discovered in the United States was unearthed in Arkansas in 1924. Named the Uncle Sam, the white diamond weighed 40.23 carats.

Not a bowling bowl but I wouldn't mind having it in my safe deposit box.