{"id":573042,"date":"2026-03-31T14:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573042\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:26:09","slug":"scientists-just-found-a-hidden-critical-point-in-water-right-before-it-freezes-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573042\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Just Found a Hidden Critical Point in Water Right Before It Freezes : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

As water gets colder, its behavior becomes increasingly weird<\/a> from a physics perspective, and researchers looking for explanations have found something new: a previously hidden ‘critical point’ that emerges in supercooled water that doesn’t freeze.<\/p>\n

Through a variety of pressure and temperature tricks, scientists can keep water in a liquid form well below the standard freezing point. Previous studies have theorized<\/a> that at this special stage, water separates into two distinct phases \u2013 both a high-density liquid and a low-density liquid.<\/p>\n

In this new study, an international team of researchers has obtained more direct evidence of this liquid-liquid state, as well as a critical point beyond which water shifts into a single but volatile state in terms of its molecular structure.<\/p>\n

Getting any kind of proper look at these water states has proven difficult, because they exist right on the boundary of water freezing and turning into ice<\/a>. It’s been described<\/a> as a “no man’s land” in terms of trying to get proper measurements.<\/p>\n

“What was special was that we were able to X-ray unimaginably fast before the ice froze and could observe how the liquid-liquid transition vanishes and a new critical state emerges,” says<\/a> chemical physicist Anders Nilsson, from Stockholm University in Sweden.<\/p>\n

“For decades there has been speculations and different theories to explain these remarkable properties and one theory has been the existence of a critical point. Now we have found that such a point exists.”<\/p>\n

Rapid heating (via infrared lasers) and super-quick snapshots (via X-ray) were crucial to the experiments carried out here. Ice engineered by the researchers was pushed through the liquid-liquid state, across the critical point, and into the fluctuating state, all while observations were made on the tiniest timescales.<\/p>\n

\"TemperatureThe researchers studied how variations in temperature and pressure affected HDA (high-density amorphous ice), LDL (low-density liquid), and HDL (high-density liquid). (You et al., Science, 2026)<\/p>\n

While the precise critical point remains to be found, this study narrows the boundaries significantly. The researchers think it’s around the -63 \u00b0C (-81.4 \u00b0F) and 1000-atmosphere mark, which will help with further investigations.<\/p>\n

What’s more, the critical point seems similar to a black hole<\/a>. As water gets closer to it, the system dynamics of the liquid slow down, and structure changes take much longer. This makes it impossible for the liquid to avoid the transition.<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

These discoveries may seem esoteric and of interest only to physicists, but they actually advance our understanding of how water works (and why it can behave so oddly) at a fundamental level. It has implications for almost everything that water is involved in on our planet and beyond, which is a lot<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Researchers studying the physics of water can now settle on the model that water has a critical point in the supercooled regime,” says<\/a> Nilsson.<\/p>\n

“The next stage is to find the implications of these findings on water’s importance in physical, chemical, biological, geological, and climate-related processes.”<\/p>\n

You only need to look at ice cubes<\/a> to see the weirdness of water. When matter cools, it usually shrinks and becomes denser \u2013 but not with water, which is why ice cubes float near the top of a glass rather than sinking to the bottom.<\/p>\n

Related: Hot, Black Ice Might Be Responsible For Neptune’s Wild Magnetism<\/a><\/p>\n

A variety of other strange properties exist in water beyond its most common states, including the two-in-one liquid behavior<\/a> analyzed here. This is another step forward, but there are lots of questions still to answer.<\/p>\n

Something else that separates water from other liquids is that it’s essential to life, as far as we know. That’s a direction the researchers want to continue to explore.<\/p>\n

“I find it very exciting that water is the only supercritical liquid at ambient conditions where life exists and we also know there is no life without water,” says<\/a> chemical physicist Fivos Perakis, from Stockholm University.<\/p>\n

“Is this a pure coincidence or is there some essential knowledge for us to gain in the future?”<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Science<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As water gets colder, its behavior becomes increasingly weird from a physics perspective, and researchers looking for explanations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,315,314,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-573042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-msft-content","11":"tag-physics","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}