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   Water is the single most important compound for maintaining life.  Its properties, however, have eluded man for centuries.  They are unique and unlike any other compound.  Liquid water at 4°C, just above water's freezing point, is the temperature at which water is at its maximum density.  As water cools towards freezing, it then becomes less dense ("Water" Wikipedia).  This occurs because the crystalline arrangement of water molecules in ice is not the closest packing possible as a result of the shape of the molecules.  An interesting consequence of this feature of water is that the temperature of water at the bottom of a lake in winter is almost always 4°C, since the densest water will settle on the bottom.  If the water gets any colder or warmer, it will rise.  Because ice floats on the top of the lake (since it is less dense then the water below), it prevents evaporation and convection, preventing the water below the ice from freezing, and allowing fish and other life to survive ("Freezing Water" Physics Van Outreach Program).  According to Pascale Ehrenfreund in an article titled "Ices in Microgravity" the bulk structure of ice could be rather different when formed in zero gravity in space.  All of our current understanding of extraterrestrial ices relies entirely on data accrued from laboratory-based studies, which are on Earth and therefore at one gravitational pull.  Therefore, it could be a possibility that an increase in gravity could also affect the structure and thus the density of ice.

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