Scientists have accidentally created a very strange type of ice. He's not like everyone else

Using ultra-low temperatures and several steel ball bearings, scientists have created a completely

a new, unusual form of ice. It has the same density as liquid water.

In contrast to crystalline ice,which forms naturally on the Earth, the new one has no organized molecular structure. The molecules of the sample are chaotic, like amorphous substances. Their atomic structure has short-range order, but not long-range order. This is typical for crystalline structures. Stable amorphous substances include glasses (artificial and volcanic), natural and synthetic resins, adhesives, paraffin and wax.

Scientists have created amorphous ice before,but it was either less dense or much denser than liquid water. The new version of amorphous is “somewhere in the middle,” almost exactly matching the density of liquid water. “This is something completely new,” the scientists write.

To create a new type of ice, scientists usedball mill They were just experimenting and wanted to “see what would come of it.” The researchers placed the material in a chamber with stainless steel balls. There, the hinges shook or turned the ice until the material was crushed.

Scientists thought that the ball mill was simplywill break ice crystals into smaller ones. But that's not what happened. Instead, the hinges cut and compressed the ice crystals until they created medium-density amorphous ice.

Computer modeling showed thatInitially, ice was in the usual crystalline state, and its hydrogen bonds formed a hexagonal lattice. A random shift under the action of the ball mill pushed them in different directions.

A new form of ice was obtained at a temperature77 Kelvins, or –196 °C. In addition to the density of 1.06 g/cm³, it has some strange properties. When the researchers compressed medium-density ice and heated it to minus -120°C, the ice “recrystallized,” releasing large amounts of heat.

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On the cover: part of an experimental setup for the production of medium-density amorphous ice. 
Image courtesy of Alexander Rose-Finsen, Christoph Salzmann