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Researchers Discover Room-Temperature Ice XXI Under Pressure

10/14/2025

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Summary

Story summary

Researchers at the European XFEL and DESY, led by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), discovered ice XXI, a room-temperature ice phase under extreme pressure.
Ice can exist in more than 20 distinct solid structures.
They formed ice XXI by rapidly compressing water while observing crystallization with advanced X-ray facilities.
The findings, published in Nature Materials, have implications for icy moons.

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Story summary

Researchers at the European XFEL and DESY, led by the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), discovered ice XXI, a room-temperature ice phase under extreme pressure.
Ice can exist in more than 20 distinct solid structures.
They formed ice XXI by rapidly compressing water while observing crystallization with advanced X-ray facilities.
The findings, published in Nature Materials, have implications for icy moons.