The new research is published in Science Advances by an international team led by chemists at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

"This discovery deepens our understanding of quantum fluids and could inspire more efficient hydrogen storage and transport for clean energy," says Professor Takamasa Momose, an expert on cold molecules at UBC and senior author of the paper.

Helium was discovered to possess superfluid characteristics at low temperatures in 1936—helium atoms flowed through extremely narrow channels without friction or viscosity. Some atomic gases can also behave like superfluids.

Physicist and Nobel laureate Dr. Vitaly Ginzburg did predict liquid hydrogen might also be a superfluid in 1972—but until now, direct observations of hydrogen molecules that can become a superfluid have eluded scientists.

Creating nano-size ultra-cold labs

Hydrogen is typically impossible to study in liquid form—it becomes a solid at -259°C (-434°F). But by confining small clusters of hydrogen molecules inside helium nanodroplets at -272.25°C (0.4 K), Dr. Momose and colleagues at RIKEN and Kanazawa University in Japan were able to keep the hydrogen in liquid form even at low temperatures.