4 ms·

I think crystals need the required substance to be liquid to grow? If you just put salt grains near each other you don't get a crystal, you need to dissolve it

by ajuc 5y ago

I think crystals need the required substance to be liquid to grow? If you just put salt grains near each other you don't get a crystal, you need to dissolve it in water or to melt it.

ncmncm 5y ago
With enough time, sublimation and vapor deposition can do the job, under the right conditions. If you come in after the experiment has been running for a hundred million years, there are probably surprises in store, things no one has ever seen.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  I know nothing, but my physics instincts say any vapor that might form crystals would evaporated in the eternal vacuum.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Vacuum deposition is a thing.
    - Tagbert 5y ago
      Yes, but the result is usually a more granular, friable substance rather than a cohesive crystal.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Have you heard of "molecular beam epitaxy"? You can make functional microelectronics with vacuum vapor deposition.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    This is the same argument as saying since all the stuff that might be deposited on (say) a gypsum crystal can dissolve in water, the water would carry it all away and there would be no gypsum crystals. But we do, in fact, get gypsum crystals: http://i0.wp.com/unusualplaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/1200px-Cristales_cueva_de_Naica.jpg http://i0.wp.com/unusualplaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/0... A likely process would be a (maybe impure) deposit of a mineral at one end of a tunnel, with a heat source, whether the sun through a skylight or thinner roof, or a geologic hot spot, causing the mineral to sublimate, howsoever slowly, and some of the vapor migrating to a colder part of the tunnel, and crystalizing out there.