Water Can Exist as Two Different Liquids

Researchers have discovered that water exists in two liquid forms, one more viscous than the other.

Stockholm University scientists have confirmed the existence of water’s two liquid forms.

Water can exist as a solid, liquid and gas, but under extreme pressure it converts into a peculiar fourth state called tunneling. Then it may freeze at temperatures it would normally boil.

Above, an artist’s impression of the two forms of ultra-viscous liquid water with different density. On the background, the x-ray speckle pattern taken from actual data of high-density amorphous ice.

Anders Nilsson, a chemical physicist at Stockholm University in Sweden, said:

“The new remarkable property is that we find that water can exist as two different liquids at low temperatures where ice crystallization is slow.”

Image credit Mattias Karlén

via Science Daily