Crystals—from sugar and table salt to snowflakes and diamonds—don't always grow in a straightforward way. New York University researchers have captured this journey from amorphous blob to orderly ...

Scientifically speaking, the term "crystal" refers to any solid that has an ordered chemical structure. This means that its parts are arranged in a precisely ordered pattern, like bricks in a wall.

An image from NASA’s Galileo orbiter shows Europa’s icy surface, crisscrossed by reddish-brown streaks of radiation-darkened salt. (Credit: NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk) A prime target in the search for ...