Newly Discovered Form of Water Ice Is ‘Really Strange’

"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!!

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?

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