Although water is a fundamental building block of life and covers over 70 percent of Earth’s surface, it has many anomalous properties that even modern science has.
In brief: Researchers at University College London (UCL) and Cambridge discovered a new form of ice. It is not naturally created on Earth but may exist on the icy moons of gas giants. It is just one of 23 types of H2O ice scientists have discovered and has properties that fundamentally change our understanding of water’s «solid» state.
Although water is a fundamental building block of life and covers over 70 percent of Earth’s surface, it has many anomalous properties that even modern science has not reconciled. For example, under immense pressure, water becomes easier to compress. This property is inverse to any other substance.
«Water is the foundation of all life,» said University College London (UCL) Chemistry Professor Christoph Salzmann. «Our existence depends on it, we launch space missions searching for it, yet from a scientific point of view it is poorly understood.»
After all, another strange property of water is that as it cools, it becomes dense. This increased density causes cold water to sink below its warmer molecules. Both of these characteristics are normal. However, water reaches peak density at only 4 degrees Centigrade, just above freezing. Then as it nears 0C and begins to form ice crystals, it becomes less dense and rises, which is why ice floats.
