Scientists discover pentagonal ice
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - 10:14
in Physics & Chemistry
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered a five-sided ice chain structure that could be used to modify future weather patterns. Researchers, in collaboration with University College London and the Fritz-Haber Institut in Berlin, created the first moments of water condensing on matter - a process vital for the formation of clouds in the atmosphere - by analysing how the two interact on a flat copper surface. Ice has rarely been viewed at the nanoscale before and the team discovered a one-dimensional chain structure built from pentagon-shaped rings, rather than the more commonly seen hexagonal structures of ice formations like those seen in snowflakes...