Cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov captured an impressive view of the icing forming on the window of the International Space Station (ISS). You might think this isn’t very unusual news, but this is the first photo of ice crystals forming on a spacecraft’s window, and no one knows how they formed.
The image was shared by Korsakov on Twitter and Telegram a few days ago. In a statement on Telegram, the cosmonaut said that the ice crystals are long-lasting, last for 24 hours, and the condensation pattern remains even after they melt. How it is formed is not entirely clear, however, and surprisingly, there is no prominent scientific literature on the subject.
Contacted ISS members NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) for information, IFLScience says all three hesitate to comment. Among the reasons for this are the possibility that the glass is in the Russian module of the ISS and, as you can imagine, due to the events taking place today, all three agencies are not talking to Roscosmos.
As there is no official information, we can only speculate at the moment. The windows of the ISS are made up of multiple glasses separated by air on the inside and vacuum on the outside. Ice crystals may be inside the windows or inside the station. While some have suggested that the cosmonauts may have breathed into the window, this is unlikely due to the nearly perfect circle shape of the icing and the temperature of the ISS.
Speaking to IFLScience, University of Liverpool glaciologist Dr. “The event seems to have the most ice at the boundary of the circle – this indicates that the formation mechanism moves evenly from all sides, reaches a threshold to form ice at the edge of the circle, and then all the water vapor is exhausted before it reaches the center end,” says James Lea.
The surprising circular shape may be the result of a temperature gradient in the glass. However, this is due to the glass properties, which are currently unclear.
Although this mystery remains unsolved, we can say that the formation of ice crystals in microgravity is an active area of research. JAXA conducted experiments on the formation of ice crystals in orbit and discovered that ice crystals with “super” symmetry can form in space.
Finally, let us remind you that Korsakov recently photographed another strange view from the window of the ISS…
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