Just a month after Harvard University physicists turned Hydrogen into a metal, completing an 80-year-long mission, that one-of-a-kind sample has disappeared.
The metallic hydrogen sample has been missing since last week and vanished after additional tests on the substance, held under immense pressure between two diamonds in a vice for stability, Science Alert reports.
Scientists suspect the sample may have returned to its original gas state.
Harvard researchers skipped some tests, such as determining if the substance was a liquid or a solid, fearing they would damage the sample, according to Quartz.
Because of the bizarre sequence of reported events, there’s been some skepticism the metallic hydrogen was even created in the first place. “I don’t think the paper is convincing at all,” French physicist Paul Loubeyre told Nature.
Despite not knowing what happened to the sample, researchers are confident they will recreate it again and plan to do so using a different type of synthetic diamond, Science Alert reports.
—RealClearLife
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