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To those who want to know if life can be "sustainable" in other planets, a new ice crystal has been created that can help researchers to arrive at a conclusion, according to the Daily Mail.

Professor Xiao Cheng Zeng of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his team used a method to make water molecules get arranged in new ways when they come together to form an ice crystal.

At extreme pressures, ice molecules form a clathrate, or interlocking "cage-like" structure that has not been seen before. This indication is important, as earlier unknown ice formations might be present in other planets at different pressures and temperatures.

"We performed a lot of calculations (focused on) whether this is not just a low-density ice, but perhaps the lowest-density ice to date," said Zeng. "If you think about it, the low density of natural ice protects the water below it. If it were denser, water would freeze from the bottom up and no living species could survive."

The ice form will be officially dubbed Ice XVII.

"Water and ice are forever interesting because they have such relevance to human beings and life," he added.

It is a novel ice form that is the second to be discovered since 2014. The study on this has been published in the journal Science Advances.