Ice

Astronomers have found more evidence of giant ice volcanoes on Pluto. New analysis of data and images gathered by the New Horizons mission have revealed unique surface structures that seem to have been produced by something known as cryovolcanism.

Ice may seem pretty simple in our everyday experience, but it actually comes in at least 20 different forms. Scientists at UNLV have now discovered a new type of ice that may be found deep in the Earth’s mantle or on distant watery planets.

Meltwater is falling to the base of the Greenland Ice Sheet with such force, the power produced is comparable to that generated by the world's largest hydroelectric power station, creating a melting effect at the bottom that is "completely unprecedented."

Recent studies reported the discovery of lakes of liquid water below the polar ice caps on Mars, but others later refuted the find. Fueling the debate are two new independent studies, which have reached opposite conclusions.

In ice cores from both ends of the planet, scientists have discovered evidence of an extreme solar storm that struck Earth around 9,200 years ago, and strangely it seemed to have occurred during a period when the Sun should have been rather quiet.

The environmental impacts of iceberg A-68 are still being assessed. A new study has calculated that the largest chunk, A-68A, released billions of tonnes of freshwater into the sea near a marine nature reserve, with untold effects on the ecosystem.

A huge deposit of water has been discovered on Mars in a formation often called its Grand Canyon. The Trace Gas Orbiter has detected an area the size of the Netherlands where water could make up as much as 40 percent of the material near the surface.

We all learned in elementary school science that water freezes at 0 °C – but it’s actually not quite that simple. New experiments have shown that tiny droplets can remain liquid right down to -44 °C, if kept in contact with a soft surface.

A research team has begun an €11-million (US$12.9-million) project with the hopes of collecting the oldest continuous ice core in Antarctica, providing a record of the climate spanning some 1.5 million years.

When it comes to keeping things cold, ice cubes are hard to beat … although the things do melt. Scientists have set about addressing that limitation, with reusable water-based "jelly ice cubes" that hold their shape at all temperatures.

Water can take on far more forms than many people give it credit for, and now scientists have recreated a particularly bizarre one in the lab – a “hot black ice” that may exist deep inside planets like Uranus and Neptune.

Scientists have collected viruses from almost-15,000-year-old ice cores, taken from glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau. Dozens of species were found to be unknown to science, which could provide an intriguing look back at the history of viral evolution.