Much of this may be redundant with an earlier post this year, but the stakes are too high and are getting higher and higher. On top of that, a hot and dry Summer is likely to come up in the northern hemisphere, which is likely to create havoc with water access.
As we had already mentioned in an earlier note, the Goldilocks zone around a star is a band within which liquid water can exist. It is neither too hot for the water to evaporate, nor too cold for it to freeze. When a star is being investigated for a potential planetary formation, scientists can estimate this Goldilocks zone and search for a rocky planet within it. Finding such an object is the first step in researching if there is a chance of life in that star system. This is so because liquid water is necessary for life.
While lying in the Goldilocks zone does not lead to life automatically－our own Mars is in our Sun’s Goldilocks zone－being outside of this zone implies no liquid water, which implies no life; at least not the kind of life that our earth harbors. This last statement is somewhat misleading because there is a probability that some moons of Jupiter and Saturn could have liquid water, event though they are very far from the Sun.
Water as a molecule is quite an impressive product: not only it is necessary for life, but it even sacrifices itself for cleansing by taking on the dirt on the objects and creatures it comes into contact with. This is especially true for humans. Furthermore, water has the distinct characteristics of having no odors, and existing in all three forms: gas (vapor), liquid, solid (ice). While this may not be unique to water, another physical characteristic of water is that the solid form of water, i.e. ice, is less dense than its liquid form, and that is unique to water.
Water is composed of two universally abundant elements (H2 and O) that fused together to produce it According to certain research, this fusion to create water took place in the early period of the cosmos, when our first singularity (Big Bang) was still relatively young (about a billion years after Big Bang), and the second singularity (Life) had not happened yet.
So, our first singularity, Big Bang, and its aftermath, created water, which then became a necessary breeding material for life, the second singularity. Furthermore, as it has been discovered on Earth, life contributed to increasing the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, thus the potential to create more water. So water is necessary for life, it sustains life through cleansing it and modelling the surface and the underbelly of planets where it is present. It is a link between our first and second singularities. In other words, water is an all encompassing and all cleansing material that also links the two singularities.
But ..... does that mean water is holy? Maybe, except that our dual singularity implies that all water is holy, not just the one that has been blessed by a clergy! So we should cherish it and protect it from waste and deterioration.
June 7, 2024, Cambridge,
Berta Seintan, PhD & Charlene Wardin, PhD