Water in Space Inquiry

I am wondering what is the effect if known of water in space? does it dissipate into its individual molecular structures or does it stay bound together?Would there be anyother noticable effects to it?

Well it gravitationally attracts other masses to it under F = G.m₁.m₂/d²But that is an effect common to all matter...I guess the question was more along the lines of is it there and in what state...You know comets?Big dirty balls of ice in space basically...Yeah sure as they wandr in and out of the solar system they leave trails as material sublimates off but basically water in space is mostly ice unless its near a star....

so than after such and such a time the water collects space dust and becomes ice and still collects space dust?

Water has surface tension, so in free fall (at room temp, in human atmosphere) it tends to form spheres and cling to things. Surface tension happens because the water molecules are slightly attracted to each other (a water molecule has a positive and negative end).In space? With no atmosphereic pressure, it doesn't take much energy to turn it into a vapor. I'd say you'd get a frozen ball at the center of a very, very big cloud.

how I am imagining this is that pictures from space of water in the ship has water floating about in blobs... but my impression than from Joz is that it would become ice and collect space dust, and from Crashfrog is that it would vaporise?

Sure in those pictures its liquid...But they are taken in an environment that won't kill an astronaut, i.e a comfortable temperature for humans (around 20 centigrade) and with a breathable atmosphere (= air pressure about 1 atm probably)...So all those show is the effect of negligable gravity, add the low temperature and you get it freezing into ice, add the low pressure (and enough energy) and you get the ball of ice slowly sublimating away.....

Water can only be a liquid in a fairly small range of pressures and temperatures - inside a manned spaceship they try very hard to stay in those ranges, so that people can stay alive, too. Outside a spaceship or a planet's atmosphere, water will almost always be vapor, above maybe 100 degrees F below zero, or ice at colder temperatures. Mars, for instance, has very little atmosphere, a good bit of ice, and a little vapor, but no liquid water (at least on the surface). Pluto has ice. Just ice - it's maybe -380F there.
Comets, like someone already said, are ice when they are far from the sun, but make lots of vapor when they come in close and heat up.

Joz and I are both right. It depends how much water we're talking about. A cup's worth of water would probably just vaporize. Several tons of water would get cold enough at the center to turn to ice, but ice would always be vaporizing off the surface, especially if it were orbiting a sun. So you'd have a cloud on the outside, and ice on the inside. Basically, a comet.------------------
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