"Newly discovered"? This is from the Nature Physics page for the original article [1]:

Received: 27 October 2015

Accepted: 01 November 2017

Published online: 05 February 2018

That has got to be the longest stretch between submission and acceptance I've ever seen for a single paper. I wonder how many rounds of review that took.

[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-017-0017-4

" The superionic ice could help explain the lopsided, off-center magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, the solar system’s seventh and eighth planets that are known as ice giants and were visited briefly by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s. Instead of Earth’s magnetic field generated at the core of the planet, the fields of those icy bodies may originate, in part, within shells of superionic ice inside their mantles. "

cool!!

Ice IX actually exists [1]. Somewhat more boring than Vonnegut's ice-nine though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX

My mind went immediately to Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle as well.

Yeah, in the hopes of this not being a candidate 'Great Filter' event I hope the scientists are dipping each ice form into a small cup of water before continuing on to the next stage.

Mine too.

It's not just the subject, but how the headline is presented, presumably quoting one of the involved researchers, ostensibly an expert on the subject:

"really strange"

That's both terrifying and comedic, a Vonnegut hallmark, really putting the "scare" into "scare quote".

Busy busy busy

Just saying that solid electrolytes ("superionic conductors" is just a synonym) have been around for a long time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_ion_conductor

There's the zirconia oxygen-sensitive electrode in your car's exhaust system, beta-alumina (used in various high-temperature batteries), the high-temperature modification of silver iodide, and others. Fascinating subject, some of these are almost as conductive as metals!

Nice science writing for a mainstream publication - accurate yet accessible, informative yet succinct.

Incorrect science in explanation of "normal" ice:

>Water is a simple molecule — two hydrogens attached to one oxygen. The three atoms normally form a V-shape. In the usual ice found on Earth, the Vs connect in an airy structure. (That is why water, unlike most every other substance, expands when it freezes.)

Not quite, the "airy structure" (overlooking the fact that there is no air between the molecules) is caused by hydrogen bonding, not the V shape.

How does it taste?

I'd suggest going to Philly to taste the water ice, but from what I understand it was recently sacked.

I'm pretty sure Tom Brady was the one who got sacked, not Nick Foles.

I believe GP meant sacked by vandals.

Clinked on link solely to find a Philly/Water Ice joke, did not leave empty handed. A+++ would click again

If the ice forms under high pressure would the crystalline structure remain intact under normal pressure?

I too always assumed that once pressure was released that other forms of ice revert to more mundane forms. This changes my thinking quite a bit.

The article is a little unclear, but I think they're saying that it was compressed between pieces of diamond, then transported still pressurized within the diamond cell.

Any phase change and polymorphism costs energy if the energy required to disorganize the crystalline structure is high it should be able to be maintained under pressures it can’t form under.

Diamonds don’t break apart just because their structure requires high pressure to form.

As long as the melting point of the ice at 1 atm pressure I don’t see why it would break down but material science isn’t my forte hence the question.

possibly, the ice could form a high-pressure metastable phase

edit: don't forget to consider temperature as well as pressure when discussing stability

TFA says they transported it “in carry-on luggage” after forming it to a different lab where they blasted it with the laser.