There’s a brand-new sort of ice.

It forms at speeds of more than 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 km/h), it lies deep underneath our feet, it might damage expect alien life, and– lastly– researchers comprehend how it works.

Back in March, scientists composing in the journal Science exposed that they have actually discovered the very first proof for this ice, called “Ice VII.” Researchers had actually forecasted its presence ahead of time. Under the best conditions, it was thought, ice might form in a swimming pool of water without a layer of heat at the leading edge of its growing surface area. That– together with super-intense pressures and temperature levels– would permit the ice to form without the majority of the normal brakes that slow its development, Science Alert reported It would likewise have a various crystal structure, or plan of atoms. Now, researchers state they have actually discovered that evasive ice for the very first time in the frozen-water cores of diamonds that bubbled up from deep inside the Earth.

The diamonds, which included Ice VII, had actually originated from a point inside the world called the mantle’s “shift zone,” in between 255 miles and 410 miles (410 and 660 kilometers) deep. (The mantle is the rocky layer in between Earth’s crust and core). And they understood that it had a crystal structure really various from the sort of ice that forms in clouds or lakes or in your freezer. [9 Strange, Scientific Excuses for Why We Haven’t Found Alien Life Yet]

However they didn’t understand exactly how it formed, or what triggered it to form that method.

New research study, released Oct. 10 in the journal Physical Evaluation Letters, discovered that there are specific mixes of temperature level and pressure at which Ice VII kinds. The mystical Ice VII starts to form at 20,700 times Earth’s air pressure at sea level and 40.7 degrees Fahrenheit (4.9 degrees Celsius), and the pressure/temperature mixes get just more extreme from there.

This might present issues for the hunt for alien life, Physics Central reported Pressure spikes– state, from meteor effects– might trigger the explosive development of Ice VII on watery worlds otherwise matched to alien life. However the mass development of this cubic ice at ripping speeds would likely avoid any such life from forming or enduring. On worlds where this takes place, life might get dispatched prior to it actually started.

Initially released on Live Science