Figuring out how to get hot water from cold ice

Figuring out how to get hot water from cold ice "New laboratory research has attempted to figure out how hot water molecules have ended up near the icy regions of comets."

"In addition to understanding the reaction energies, the team suggested a mechanism that explained how D3O+ becomes D2O and D. They hypothesized that an electron attaches to the hydronium ion, forming an unstable intermediate that decays into the final products. The team found that the pathway that leads to D2O and D released an amount of energy far below the predicted reaction energy, suggesting that the remainder remains trapped in the resulting D2O molecule, held in the form of internal excitation. The heavy water molecules generated in the laboratory reaction had temperatures in excess of 60,000K, a finding that explains the signature of hot water found in the cold icy environment of a comet."