Ice is A key component in the universe. Are frozen water molecules on Cometsmoons, ExoplanetsAnd in your drink as you are cold from the summer heat. However, under the microscope, not every ice is the same, although it is made from the same components.
The internal structure of the ice of the earth is a cosmological strange. Its molecules are arranged in geometric structures, usually hexagons that repeat each other. Ice on Earth is formed in this way due to the temperature and pressure of our planet: water here freezes slowly, and this allows its molecules to arrange into crystals.
But ice that forms in space is different because of the conditions – the water exists in a vacuum and is subject to extreme temperatures. Space ice, as a result, is believed to amorphous, lacking a separate organizational structure as on Earth.
This presents a challenge for scientists trying to understand the formation of planets and the generation of life. Do not fully understand the dynamics of amorphous ice in space have striking effects. For example, not knowing exactly how space water freezes difficult to estimate the proportion of water in other solar systems.
Researchers therefore study space ice to better understand how frozen water behaves away from the ground. Ice specimens of comets, asteroids and other solar system waste would be helpful, but until these can be captured, scientists try to understand spatial ice with computer models and simulations of ice on the ground. The more they study it, the more surprises it reveals.
A recent report, published in the newspaper Physical Review Bbelieves that the amorphous ice that abounds in the universe has some order. The paper theorizes that it is probably made up of structured fragments – crystallized regions, as on the ground, but only about 3 nanometers wide – surrounded by chaos.
