What is ice?
Brittle as glass and hard as stone. Transparent as air and cloudy as smoke. Light as a feather and heavy as lead. He tightens the thin crust of the autumn autumn puddles, covers the winter rollers, grows a fur coat in the freezer. He is thrown into lemonade and champagne, he is put to bruises. So what is this? Correctly! It's ice! And what is ice, you know? Where does it come from?
Ice as a state of matter
In the conventional term, ice is frozen water. Scientifically speaking, ice is water in a solid state, which is also called aggregate. Ice is formed under the influence of low temperatures and pressure. The formation of ice occurs as a result of crystallization - a change in the state of the molecular lattice. Some other liquid and gaseous substances also turn into such a state.
Properties of ice
The most famous property of ice is its abilitymelt or melt. About this property, we already wrote in the article Why the ice melts. But this is not his only ability. Ice can flow, swim, crack. The physical properties of ordinary ice that exists in nature depend on its age, pressure and temperature.
Ice properties:
- colorlessness (does not have color);
- transparency (transmits light);
- hardness (retains shape);
- buoyancy (low density);
- fluidity (it is able to flow like a viscous liquid);
- cleavage (ability to split over crystallographic directions);
- fragility.
Ice on Earth, in the Ocean, in Space
On our planet, ice exists on land and in the ocean. This is atmospheric ice, glacial, water (sea) and underground.
- Atmospheric ice. Frozen water particles suspended in the atmosphere, which also fall as precipitation: snow, hail, frost.
- Ice Ice. This is an ice monolithic rock that forms glaciers. Glaciers appear as a result of accumulation and compaction of snow.
- Underground ice. The frozen water, which is in the upper layers of the earth's crust and is contained in its permafrost.
Ice in the ocean is sea ice. It can be annual and perennial, immobile and drifting (floating). Freshwater floating ice, icebergs are broken pieces of glacial ice that descended into the ocean.
There is ice in space. It occurs in the nuclei of comets, on the planets of the solar system and their satellites. For example, the surface of one of the satellites of Jupiter consists entirely of ice.
Ice phases
The phases of ice are the stages of its transitionalphysical state, changes in chemical composition. Some phases of ice form in natural natural conditions, others require special conditions. At present, science knows the following types of ice and its ice phases:
- amorphous;
- hexagonal (ice Ih and ice XI);
- cubic (ice Ic, ice VII and ice VIII);
- trigonal (ice II);
- tetragonal (ice III, ice VI, ice IX and ice XII);
- metastable (ice IV);
- monoclinic (ice V, ice XIII);
- symmetrical (ice X);
- crystalline (ice XIII, ice XIV, ice XV).
At present, scientists predict andthe possibility of forming other phases of ice and modifications of its varieties. Research in this natural mineral continues in scientific laboratories, since ice is used in many industries, and it also helps to study the past of our planet and study the laws and phenomena of the Cosmos.
