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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2013
Interstellar water ice is mainly amorphous, but the nature of its morphology stillremains poorly known. The experimental study described in this work focuses on howrelevant changes of the ice morphology result from atomic hydrogen exposure and subsequentrecombination. We show that there is an exponential decrease in the porosity of theamorphous water ice sample following hydrogen-atom irradiation. These and other laboratoryresults lead us to suggest that water ice in space is almost certainly amorphous andnon-porous (compact).