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On Earth, most ice is found in the hexagonal Ice I h phase. Less common phases may be found in the atmosphere and underground due to more extreme pressures and temperatures. Some phases are manufactured by humans for nano scale uses due to their properties. In space, amorphous ice is the most common form as confirmed by observation.
Ice crystal. A close-up of growing ice crystals displaying typical hexagonal symmetry. Ice crystals are solid ice in symmetrical shapes including hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, and dendritic crystals. [1] Ice crystals are responsible for various atmospheric optic displays and cloud formations. [1][2]
Ice that is found at sea may be in the form of drift ice floating in the water, fast ice fixed to a shoreline or anchor ice if attached to the seafloor. [45] Ice which calves (breaks off) from an ice shelf or a coastal glacier may become an iceberg. [46] The aftermath of calving events produces a loose mixture of snow and ice known as Ice ...
Snowflake. A snowflake is a single ice crystal that has achieved a sufficient size, and may have amalgamated with others, which falls through the Earth's atmosphere as snow. [1][2][3] Each flake nucleates around a tiny particle in supersaturated air masses by attracting supercooled cloud water droplets, which freeze and accrete in crystal form.
Crystal. Crystals of amethyst quartz. Microscopically, a single crystal has atoms in a near-perfect periodic arrangement; a polycrystal is composed of many microscopic crystals (called "crystallites" or "grains"); and an amorphous solid (such as glass) has no periodic arrangement even microscopically. A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid ...
X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract in specific directions. By measuring the angles and intensities of the X-ray diffraction, a crystallographer can produce a three-dimensional picture of ...
Regular, hexagonal ice is also less dense than liquid water—upon freezing, the density of water decreases by about 9%. [36] [e] These peculiar effects are due to the highly directional bonding of water molecules via the hydrogen bonds: ice and liquid water at low temperature have comparatively low-density, low-energy open lattice structures.
Halo (optical phenomenon) A halo (from Ancient Greek ἅλως (hálōs) 'threshing floor, disk') [1] is an optical phenomenon produced by light (typically from the Sun or Moon) interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky.