But pretty cool. Behold, metallic oxygen. It's red.

And I wouldn't bet against someone coming up with a use for it. Or something like it:

...high-pressure techniques have already been used to create ultrahard materials such as diamond. Other chemicals, such as nitrogen and carbon monoxide, form solid polymers under pressure that store a lot of energy. If similar structures could be retained at atmospheric pressure, they might make excellent rocket fuel, suggests McMahon.

[Via Geek Press]

I follow this high pressure work occassionally, because it may be a route (or at least provide data to help along the route) to a weird phenomenon called pycnonuclear fusion. This form of fusion, where pressure and electron screening rather than kinetic energy promotes barrier penetration, may end up being the only remotely plausible scheme for fusion reactors burning just ordinary hydrogen.

Somehow it is fitting that metallic oxygen is red. So, lets go out and make a solid rocket engine - 50% metallic oxygen, 50% aluminum.

Whoosh!

The metastable materials might make good rocket fuel if we could keep them from exploding beforehand. They also need to be available by the ton on the cheap.

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