Physicists Discover a Strange New Theoretical Phase of Hydrogen

By teaching a machine to learn a few quantum tricks, physicists have uncovered a strange new phase of hydrogen in solid form. While it's purely theoretical for now, the discovery could help us better understand the behavior of matter from the tiniest scales to the internal mechanics of the largest planets in the Universe.

This new solid hydrogen phase discovered by an international team of researchers followed the model's presentation of hydrogen molecules under extreme conditions: to use a food analogy, their shape morphed from spheres stacked like a pile of oranges to something that more closely resembled eggs.
Hydrogen typically requires very low temperatures and very high pressures to form a solid. It was through a novel machine learning study of this particular phase change that the scientists came across the new molecular arrangement.
Physicists Discover a Strange New Theoretical Phase of Hydrogen