There are numerous forms of frozen water. Water ice is known to have 20 common or crystalline phases and at least two families of amorphous phases.
Amorphous forms do not have a highly ordered crystalline structure, in contrast to common ice, whose molecules are frequently arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Amorphous ice is probably the most common structure for water throughout the universe, even though almost all frozen water on Earth is crystalline.
Medium-density amorphous ice (MDAI) is a type of water ice that was first discovered in 2018 by a research team led by Dr. Livia Bove at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is a form of amorphous ice, which means that its molecules are not arranged in a crystalline structure like the ice we are used to seeing.
MDAI is unique because it has a density that falls between that of low-density amorphous ice (LDAI) and high-density amorphous ice (HDAI), two other forms of amorphous ice that were previously discovered. This makes MDAI the first intermediate-density amorphous ice to be identified.
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