how does water act in the absence of gravity?

Question

If there is no gravity present, say in deep space, how would water act, would it displace outwards into infinity destroying itself or does it hold its form when it is released?

Answer 1

It will form spherical like globules and if you hit one of them they can show simple harmonic oscillation where the droplet will look like a figure 8 and then come back to a sphereoid. This assumes you have an atmosphere close to 1atm pressure like you have here on earth.

One time on an airplane flight, I had water in a cup and the plane hit turbulence and dropped like a rock. For about 5 seconds we were in free fall. The water left my cup and floated in an undulating ball above my head, when the plane straightened out, I got very wet!

If you throw water out into deep space it will break up into individual molecules and float away in space. The astronauts used to dump urine out into space coining what Wally Schirra called the "constellation Urion!"

Answer 2

If you are in a microgravity environment, isolated water will tend to form spherical globule(s) because of surface tension. If you are in a vacuum as in outer space, the water will evaporate until it freezes; the resulting ice will sublime until the entire mass of water has evaporated.
-- Robert A. Saunders, Lake Stevens, WA.

Answer 3

It will somewhat hold A form due to waters natural surface tension. It will typically form itself into spheres.

Answer 4

it holds its form. It's fun to see it in movies about the astronauts when they are weightless and blobs of water are floating around. Seems like it would be like eating jello.

Answer 5

It holds its form forever and just floats around still compacted like a little blob though...

Answer 6

in the space shuttle it would be a free floating ball, but space is a vacuum and in a vacuum water will boil in a vacuum so i think it would be a boiling sphere

Answer 7

it forms into a ball and just flaots around.

Answer 8

no idea