Water droplets filled with nanoparticles leave behind deposits as they evaporate. Like a coffee ring, particles in the evaporating droplet tend to gather at the drop’s edge (left). As the Keep reading
Tag: cracking
“There is a crack in everything…”
When millimeter-sized drops of water infused with nanoparticles dry, they leave behind complex and beautiful residues. As water continues evaporating, the residues warp, bend, and crack. In this video, researchers Keep reading
Drying Cracks
Droplets with particles in them can leave complex stains when they dry — just look at coffee rings and whiskey marks! Here, researchers look at the patterns left on glass Keep reading
Spiral Ice Cracks
This odd puddle was found in Arizona after a night with low temperatures around -8 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit). Unlike the concentric rings sometimes seen on ice, this puddle Keep reading
Curved Cracks
When mixtures of particles and fluids dry, they typically leave a pattern of straight cracks. Here researchers explore what happens when the drying film contains bacteria from the family E. Keep reading
Slab Avalanche Physics
Slab avalanches like the one shown here begin after weak, porous layers of snow get buried by fresher, more cohesive snow layers. On a steep slope, the weight of the Keep reading
Rings of Ice
Heavy rains followed by a sudden freeze can produce icy puddles like this one. Because the pool was shallow to begin with, it likely froze rapidly. As the temperature continued Keep reading
Ice Patterns
Periods of freezing and thawing can leave complicated patterns in ice, as seen in this aerial photo of Binnewater Lake in New York. Ice rarely forms evenly on large bodies Keep reading
Icy Spikes
Water is one of those strange materials that expands when it freezes, which raises an interesting question: what happens to a water drop that freezes from the outside in? A Keep reading