Morphological Instability during Ice Disk Growth―Overview of ISS-KIBO Experiment

Abstract

Microgravity experiments on the morphological instability and pattern formation of ice crystals growing in supercooled bulk heavy water were carried out in the Japanese Experiment Module ``KIBO'' of the International Space Station (ISS) in the period from December 2008 to March 2009. Totally 134 experiments were successfully repeated in the space and the processes of ice crystal growth were recorded using the interference microscopes with crossed optical axes. Ice crystal growth was observed as a function of supercooling between 0.01K and 2K. The results of these space experiments are introduced very briefly in this report.