Scientists from Harvard created the metallic for the first time on Earth hydrogen, a new material on our planet whose existence was predicted 80 years ago.
The Harvard researchers have been able to compress hydrogen molecules with synthetic diamonds, exerting enormous pressures of the 495 GPa (gigascapal), much higher than those carried out in the center of our planet and at a temperature just above the absolute zero, -270 οC, or 5,5 Kelvin or -450 degrees Fahrenheit.
As scientists increased the pressure, they began to observe the translucency hydrogen to turn black. Finally, at a pressure 5 million times our own air pressure, hydrogen acquired reflection. The researchers presented this phenomenon as evidence that hydrogen atoms had acquired a regular 3D structure, like a metallic object, that is, they had acquired a physical state first predicted by physicists Hillard Huntington and Eugene Wignerin in 1935.
Η discovery και η παρατήρηση μιας μεταλλικής μορφής του υδρογόνου θα είναι σημαντική όχι μόνο επειδή θα λύσει ένα μακροχρόνιο επιστημονικό μυστήριο, αλλά και για τις possibilities of the material. The new material has almost zero resistance to electricity, i.e. it is the best conductor of electricity that exists on our planet. The scientists say in their paper that published online in Science magazine yesterday, that metallic hydrogen will be "an important material for solving energy problems and may potentially revolutionize rocket technology as a powerful propellant".
In addition, such a material is metastable, which means it will remain metallic as the pressure that forced it to change form and gas becomes solid, goes down to normal levels. But switching from solid to gas again, through some other external influences, will release huge amounts of energy, revolutionizing missile technology.
It is believed that liquid metallic hydrogen is a basic component of the giant planets Zeus and Saturn, a theory the Juno spacecraft hopes to detect, according to NASA.
This is not the first time that scientists have claimed to have discovered metallic hydrogen. German scientists also made a similar statement to 2012, which proved untrue. That is why several physicists in different countries (USA, Britain, France), according to "Nature", said they were not convinced at all that metallic hydrogen was actually created and reserved until more experiments were made.
