Why Are Water Droplets Spherical in Shape?

Have you ever thrown water in the sky?
Have you seen raindrops falling from the sky?
 Have you observed drops of water on bathroom windows?

 I know for all questions you would answer "Yes". But what's so special about it? They are just drops of water. They are spherical in shape. And in this article you will learn why droplets of liquids are spherical in shape.
To understand this,  you should know about adhesive force and cohesive force

cohesive force
This is a force of attration between molecules of same substance.
Adhesive force
This is force of attration between molecules of different substances.

When we think about a small droplet of water, it contains thousands of small water molecules. We know that water molecule contains hydrogen-oxygen bond. So there is intermolecular hydrogen bonding between different water molecules. So there is cohesive force acting between these molecules.

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When we put water droplets on glass, it is not purely spherical in shape. It is flattened. Because there is cohesive force of attraction between molecules of water and equally,  molecules of glass also attract water molecules towards themselves known.  This is an adhesive force as shown in figure (A).

figure (A)

But when we throw water in air, all molecules of water get attracted towards the centre as shown in figure (B)

figure (B)

    All this phenomena takes place due to surface tension. In simple words it is just force per unit length acting perpendicular  to an imaginary line drawn on surface of liquid. Because of surface tension, free surface of liquid is always in a stretched condition like rubber membrane. The tendency of liquid is to minimize the surface area. So water choose spherical shape as surface area of sphere is less as compared to other shapes. And if gravity was absent then each drop of liquid would be spherical in shape.
Stay tuned.