Scientists Discover a Weird New Form of Ice That May Change How We Think About Water - ScienceAlert

Researchers led by chemist Alexander Rosu-Finsen, formerly of University College London in the UK, have named the new form medium-density amorphous ice (MDA).

Our existence depends on it, we launch space missions searching for it, yet from a scientific point of view it is poorly understood," says chemist Christoph Salzmann of University College London.

Here on Earth, ice naturally takes a crystalline form, with its atoms arranged in a repeating hexagonal pattern.

In the near-vacuum of space, however, ice is usually amorphous, because the atoms don't retain enough thermal energy to wiggle around into a crystalline structure.

They found that this process releases a surprising amount of energy, suggesting that MDA could play a role in tectonic activity on ice-encrusted worlds like Jovian moon Ganymede.

"We have shown it is possible to create what looks like a stop-motion kind of water," says chemist Andrea Sella of University College London.