Novel forms of the elements predicted by simulation

It is believed that metallic hydrogen should be a superconductor up to record high temperatures (perhaps 300C). However, the structure of hydrogen at very high pressure is unknown. It is commonly believed that it should transform into a molecular metal at around 3.5 Mbar, and then turn into a non-molecular metal at ~5 Mbar. Now, ETH researchers Oganov and Glass predict that the molecular state will survive at least up to 6 Mbar. For comparison: the much stronger nitrogen molecule is destroyed at much lower pressures of ~0.5 Mbar. This puts hydrogen much closer to halogens than to alkali metals.