Consider Water

Water is amazing. We tend to take it for granted, turn on the faucet and out it flows. Flush the toilet and away it goes. Put your glass under the ice dispenser, and clunk, clunk, clunk, out comes solid water. Here are some fun water facts to help you appreciate this fabulous fluid, or solid, or vapor.

Remember the water molecule, that Mickey Mouse shape with one oxygen atom and two hydrogens sticking out like ears? Molecules are surrounded by a whirling cloud of electrons and protons. The water molecule is polar, which means that the negatively charged electrons tend to hang out at one end of the molecule, and the positively charged protons at the other end. Water molecules jostle around all the time because of this polarity. All that jostling makes water able to dissolve just about anything, even solid rock.

The jostling and movement of water molecules is caused because each molecule is trying to get its positive end next to the negative end of other molecules and vice versa. In the middle of the water, they just can’t get lined up right, but at the edge of the water, they line up very strongly, creating a layer we call surface tension. It is strong enough to support water bugs walking across the top of a pond. More importantly, it slows evaporation.

Water molecules act like a school of little fish with a barracuda lurking nearby. They are all trying to get in the middle. That is why water drops are mostly round, and why water spilled on the table stays in a puddle instead of spreading out all over. Little fish will all try to get next to a rock or other object. Water molecules would rather be next to glass or plastic or just about anything else than air. Look at water in a straw. At the top, the water forms an upside down U shape. The water molecules would much rather be next to the plastic than at the air surface, and they literally climb up the plastic.

Water molecules are so sticky from this polarity, they will pull each other up very thin tubes. Plants have thin tubes to move materials around. The stickiness of water is so strong, water pulls itself to the top of the tallest trees. Trees can’t grow any taller than the sticky force will hold water together. Pretty smart, those plants, lifting tons of water without moving a muscle.

Water is one of the few substances where the solid phase is lighter than the liquid phase. Ice floats. Anyone who has rattled ice in their drink can see this. Water freezes from the top down, which is really important if you’re a fish or aquatic bug. There’s almost always liquid water at the bottom of a frozen pond in winter.

It takes a lot of energy for water to change form, either to ice or vapor. Our oceans absorb a huge amount of energy from the sun without boiling, or even evaporating much. You can thank our oceans that the Earth’s temperature stays relatively constant. A range of zero to a hundred degrees F is nothing compared to temperatures in the rest of the universe!

Water is in almost everything, the shirt you’re wearing, the carpet you’re walking on, the air you’re breathing. Water is almost everywhere. We’ve detected water on the moon and Mars. In the asteroid belt beyond Mars, many of the asteroids are big ice balls. Beyond Pluto is the Oort cloud. While the asteroid belt is a ring, the Oort cloud is a sphere of asteroids around our whole galaxy where the asteroids are almost all ice balls. Water has been detected on planets in other solar systems. Thousands of light years away, there is a supermassive black hole that is spewing energy out one side. Guess what else is in that stream of energy? Water.

Just something to think about next time you’re washing dishes.