Entirely new type of ice made using extremely cold steel balls

A brand new kind of ice known as medium-density amorphous ice has the identical density as liquid water, so learning it may assist us perceive water’s unusual behaviour at low temperatures

By Leah Crane

Researchers have discovered a completely new type of ice. The ice is amorphous, that means it doesn’t have a neatly organised crystal construction, and it may assist unravel the mysteries of liquid water.

We already knew of two kinds of amorphous ice: high-density and low-density. There was a spot within the center, and researchers thought there was no solution to make medium-density amorphous ice, or MDA. But when Christoph Salzmann at University College London and his colleagues put common ice – which has a hexagonal crystal construction – into a glass with metal ball bearings cooled to -200°C (-328°F), the shear forces produced by the jostling created MDA.

“It was one of those Friday afternoon experiments where you just do it and see what happens,” says Salzmann. “Naively, you’d think nothing would happen, you’d just break the ice down into smaller bits. But to our great surprise, something did happen.”

The advantageous white powder produced within the experiment had a density proper between the opposite two identified types of amorphous ice, virtually precisely the identical density as liquid water. This led the researchers to counsel that it could be water in what known as a glass part, which is a sort of matter that continues to behave like a liquid even at extraordinarily low temperatures – on quick timescales, a glass might seem strong, however on longer timescales it flows like a viscous liquid.

Liquid water, as mundane as it could appear, harbours mysteries as soon as it’s cooled to extraordinarily low temperatures. Based on the hole between low- and high-density amorphous ice, researchers have beforehand steered that supercooled water may very well exist in two completely different liquid phases without delay, with one floating atop the opposite, however the existence of MDA brings this concept into query.

“It’s not crystalline like regular ice, the face of ice that you know, and the density is the same as liquid water, so the big question is, what is this stuff?” says Salzmann. “I’m confident that if we can figure out what this MDA is, then we will understand liquid water much better.”

MDA may be an vital ingredient within the icy moons of the outer photo voltaic system. These unusual worlds expertise intense shear forces because of the gravity of their host planets, which may create the suitable situations for MDA to type. The researchers additionally discovered that when this ice was warmed up, it launched a unprecedented quantity of warmth, which may give it an outsized affect on the geological exercise of these worlds.