Ice

A bizarre object named ‘Oumuamua, defying classification, was the first interstellar object ever discovered. Now a newly proposed origin story neatly explains all of its observed oddities – it may be a piece of nitrogen ice from an “exo-Pluto.”

Scientists have made the surprising discovery of fossilized plants 1.4 km beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet. That indicates the island has been ice-free within the last million years – meaning it’s more vulnerable to climate change than we thought.

Scientists have categorized 18 different types of ice so far, each with its own unique crystalline structure and unique arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Now another, by the name of ice XIX, has been added to the list.

If you were a marine animal that just sat and waited for food to drift by, you might not choose to live in a place where little life is believed to exist. Nonetheless, such critters have recently been found deep beneath an Antarctic ice shelf.

Mars may have experienced up to 20 ice ages in the past 300 to 800 million years, according to the results of a new study. Glaciers formed during the cooling periods represent fascinating targets for future exploration missions.

Scientists have tapped into geological records to model historical ice sheet changes at either end of the globe and, for the first time, demonstrated how the melting of one has influenced coverage of the other over the past 40,000 years.

The Arctic is one place that’s been hit particularly hard by climate change. Now a new study has shown that the Arctic is beginning to transition into an entirely new climate state, leaving its predominantly frozen state behind.

Home to constant turbulent weather and the Great Red Spot – a storm bigger than Earth – Jupiter is the storm capital of the solar system. Now NASA’s Juno mission has discovered two new quirks of these storms – shallow lightning and “mushball” hail.

The unique arrangement of nanoscale bumps coating a moth’s eye have inspired all kinds of interesting technological advances. Joining them is a new type of anti-icing surface that could make its way onto airplane wings, or possibly eyewear.

Geological evidence shows that ancient Mars had flowing water. It’s long been thought that its climate was warm and wet, but a new study has found evidence that the planet was instead covered in ice sheets, and much of its water glacier run-off.

NASA has released the first images taken by its Juno deep-space probe of the north pole of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, which reveal that the Ganymedean polar region contains a glass-like form of ice formed by bombardment of solar particles.

On 12 July 2017, one of the biggest icebergs ever seen broke off from the Antarctic mainland. Now on the third anniversary of the event, satellite data has shown that the berg has traveled over 1,000 km (620 mi) and managed to stay relatively intact