In one of the quickest scientific experiments, scientists have turned water into ice in nanoseconds, making the ice hotter than boiling water. The experiment was done at the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Sandia National Laboratories.

The experiment was successfully carried out by huge Z machine, which generates temperatures hotter than the sun thus setting a record here on Earth. Sandia researcher Daniel Dolan said, "Compressing water customarily heats it. But under extreme compression, it is easier for dense water to enter its solid phase [ice] than maintain the more energetic liquid phase [water]."

During the experiment, the volume of water shrank abruptly and discontinuously but it was equivalent to the structure of almost every known form of ice except the ordinary kind.

Experts believe that the new research will guide then about materials at extreme conditions as the freezing was caused by rapid compression of around 70,000 times normal atmospheric pressure in a tiny fraction of a second. However, when the pressure was relieved, the ice melted.