Have you ever noticed, Why ice floats in your glass of water ?
You will be able to answer your question by self after reading this.
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| A. Falenty, T. C. Hansen, and W. F. Kuhs from Nature |
Water is one of the relatively few compounds in which the solid is less
dense than the liquid. That, of course, is why ice floats in your glass. Researchers now unveiled a new solid phase of ice that has a density of 0.81 grams per cubic centimeter, lowest density version known. It is known as ice XVI, the 17th solid phase of ice discovered to date, it has
a cage like structure that can trap other molecules (green and gray
above).
Such ice cages, known as clathrates, are known to store enormous quantities of methane and are naturally present in large quantities on the deep ocean floor. The new clathrate, by contrast, is empty, though it didn’t start that
way.
The cagelike structure originally formed surrounding neon atoms
(blue). The neon was then leached out of the clathrate through rings of
water molecules (red dashed lines). The new form of ice may help
researchers better understand clathrates in general, and perhaps ease
the flow of oil and gas through pipelines at low temperatures.
Source: Nature
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