"This is the holy grail of high-pressure physics," said Professor Isaac Silvera from Harvard University in the US. "One prediction that's very important is metallic hydrogen is predicted to be meta-stable," Silvera said. "It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make metallic hydrogen," Silvera said. The specific impulse for metallic hydrogen, by comparison, is theorised to be 1,700 seconds. "Diamonds are polished with diamond powder, and that can gouge out carbon from the surface.

Source: Economic Times January 29, 2017 07:54 UTC