The states of water are present in the earth's crust and in the atmosphere. The hydrosphere consists of exorbitant masses of liquid water, mostly salty, which give the Earth its characteristic bluish surface; and at its white poles, two icy regions where ice proliferates in the form of polar caps.
As for their vapors, we see their final development in the cloud condensate, when they are clumped together enough to reflect the sunlight in its typical whitish colors. The clouds, gaseous colloids, release their water content causing rain or precipitation, or freeze into tiny crystals that fall like snow.
Water, although it seems a simple compound, hides in its crystalline drops a torrent of incredible properties that extend through all its physical states. Source: Pxhere.
When water vapors cool to low altitudes, they coat objects or surfaces with frost, which looks like snow but brighter and more crystalline. On the other hand, in mist or fog, the water particles are combined in more than one state, since they consist of less dense colloids that blur and whiten the view of the spectators.
Of all its physical states, the most important is liquid, since it makes up a large part of our body and of all living organisms.
Let's see what the three states of water are:
Solid
As a solid, water can be found as ice, snow, or frost.
Ice
A gallery of blue glaciers. Source: Pxhere.
The chemical formula of water is H 2 O, and its molecule can be written as HOH, whose geometry is angular (boomerang type), capable of forming three hydrogen bonds in the liquid state.
Meanwhile, when the temperature drops and the water cools, its molecules adopt four such bridges, which creates a specific and repetitive spatial arrangement: a crystal of water. This crystal is popularly known as ice. Ice is then the solid state of water.
Examples of ice are found in drink cubes, in water bottles that freeze in the refrigerator, on the surfaces of swimming pools or fountains exposed to winter, or in the masses of glaciers.
Ice can appear as colorless blocks, but it can turn whitish depending on its impurities or content of occluded air. It can also display pale bluish hues (top image), which represent the most natural way in which light interacts with your crystals.
Thus, the water is not entirely colorless or crystalline: it has an almost imperceptible blue color. This color intensifies according to the concentration and compaction of the water molecules irradiated by the light.
Snow
Snowy fields resemble sandy surfaces. Source: Matthias MeyerPexels.
Snow is also ice, but whose crystals are smaller since they were formed from microscopic drops of water, frozen and suspended in clouds. These crystals or snowflakes agglomerate, fall into the void and end up settling a powdery white solid on the surfaces.
However, the morphology of snow and its types escapes the meteorological field.
Frost
Frost is recognizable by its brightest and most prominent crystals. Source: Pixabay.
Frost is also another of the best known and most admired ice manifestations. Unlike snow, its crystals originate at low altitudes, as a result of the deposition of water vapors on cold surfaces; the first crystals serve as nuclei for the second, and so on until scaly or bristly patterns form (top image).
Liquid
Liquid water is its most important and vital state, although not the most abundant in the universe. Source: Pixabay.
Liquid water is the most common on Earth, although the same cannot be said for other planets. We see it on the shores in its effervescent waves, and beyond on the blue horizon with its undulating crests.
The exorbitant volumes of the oceans allow them to display increasingly darker blue colors as one descends to greater depths where the light is completely scattered and its rays do not illuminate anything.
Fresh water is the liquid that sustains all forms (that is known) of life, as its molecules are contained inside and outside cells.
The energetic states of water molecules in liquid are more random and heterogeneous than those found in ice: hydrogen bonds are constantly being created and broken as the molecules of liquid water move from one side to the other.
From liquid water the existence of regions of low and high densities is studied; that is, areas of the liquid where the molecules are more grouped than in others. Vitreous and super viscous water is even referred to as liquid phase transitions under high pressure.
Gaseous
In the hot springs or geysers you can see the water vapors. Source: Pixabay.
When water evaporates, its H 2 O molecules go to the gaseous state or vapor phase: water vapor. These vapors are colorless, but if their concentration is high they can be seen as a white smoke, characteristic when boiling cauldrons with water, in hot springs, or in the boiling jets of geysers.
Once the water vapors rise to the sky, they begin to cool down, beginning to form microscopic drops of water that remain suspended in the air; all of them are known as clouds, large enough to reflect all the colors of sunlight, and mixed with other particles present in the atmosphere.
Others
If an ice is heated, liquid water will form, and this in turn water vapor. This is so at atmospheric pressure; However, this pressure can be manipulated as well as the temperature to subject the water to hostile conditions, such as those found in the Cosmos, especially inside the icy planets such as Uranus and Neptune.
Water under pressure (in the order of hundreds of GPa) and overwhelming temperatures (thousands of degrees Celsius), acquires physical states whose characteristics no longer coincide with conventional ice and its polymorphs, as well as with liquid and its vapors.
For example, one of these states is ice XVIII, which, more than ice, is a superionic solid with metallic characteristics; it carries protons inside it instead of electrons. It is believed that if it could be obtained in appreciable quantities, it would look like hot black crystals - black ice.
References
- Whitten, Davis, Peck & Stanley. (2008). Chemistry (8th ed.). CENGAGE Learning.
- Steven S. Zumdahl. (August 15, 2019). Toilet. Encyclopædia Britannica. Recovered from: britannica.com
- Wikipedia. (2019). Properties of water. Recovered from: en.wikipedia.org
- Rodrigo Ledesma. (December 23, 2016). Scientists have discovered a new state of matter for water. Quartz. Recovered from: qz.com
- Martin Chaplin. (September 9, 2019). Water Phase Diagram. Recovered from: 1.lsbu.ac.uk
- Sheila M. Estacio. (sf). States of Water. Recovered from: nyu.edu
- Helmenstine, Anne Marie, Ph.D. (November 19, 2018). What Is the Difference Between Ice and Snow? Recovered from: thoughtco.com