text: why do rain drops have the specific shape they have??   everyone says that the surface tension causes the drop to be spherical. but how? and why?  lets explain surface tension first- in an air-water interface, the molecules that are close to the surface are attracted by fewer molecules of the liquid than the ones that are not close to the surface. the former thus, has less attractive potential energy than the latter, right?  now, for any matter (solid or liquid), attractive potential energy results in stability & repulsive energy results in instablity. right?  so, it is energetically unfavourable to have a surface for a liquid (or solid) as it results in loss of attractive potential energy.  now, for that reason, a drop tends to have the lowest possible surface area to remain stable. now, using some high level mathematics, we can find out that a sphere has the lowest possible surface area for a given volume. (it is better than a cube atleast).  hence why we can see that the water bubbles and drops tend to be spherical.   but, as gravity pulls the drop downwards, it looks like the way it does. due to the distortion by the pull of gravity, the drops appear somewhat oval in shape but, in the absense of gravity, all the liguid-air surfaces tend to be spherical.  i hope it helped. have a nice day!