Fill your ice cube trays with water, place them in the freezer, and the next day, you will have ice cubes formed through a process called freezing. If you drop those ice cubes on the floor, soon they will have melted into a puddle of water. Freezing and melting are two common phase transitions, or changes in the states of matter to or from solid, liquid, gas, or plasma.

Sublimation is another one of these phase transitions; except in this case, we have a solid turning directly into a gas. As a sublimating material changes from a solid to a gas, it never passes through the liquid state. Water is in three forms: ice, water, and steam. Sublimation is just one of the ways water or another substance can change between its potential phases.