Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?

NASA in September 2009 announced that they had found ice water in craters on Mars and water dispersed on the moon. Water is the most important thing for living organisms, and it might be common in the solar system. Evidence suggests that water as a solid, liquid or gas is present at the poles of Mercury, within the clouds of Venus, on Mars, inside asteroids and comets, and on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Scientists have also speculated that subsurface oceans of liquid water exist in Jupiter's moons. They have also detected water forms in Pluto's moon, in interstellar gas and in the atmospheres of stars. Pamela Conrad, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, states ""It's not a surprise that the simple (molecules) would show up again and again ... But I think its discovery on specific planets or other bodies in the solar system has a significance beyond whether or not we're surprised that it's there. It gives us permission to speculate on whether or not there is other chemistry that would be relevant to the origin or the sustenance of life."

Scientists continue their search for extraterrestrial water because Earth requires it. Liquid water has properties that make it essential for life. Sushil Atreya, who studies the formation of planets and the evolution of their atmospheres at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's Planetery Science Laboratory, says "Liquid water acts as a solvent, as a medium and as a catalyst for certain types of proteins, and those are three main things that allow life to flourish."

This article is an example of discovery science because scientists have found evidence of water forms in the universe and deducted that water is common in other places besides Earth. This discovery is important for humans because it proves that other forms of life may exist in other planets and astoids, etc.

Author: Bruce Lieberman

Title: Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?

Journal: Scientific American

Date published: October 4, 2009

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=water-lust-why-all-the-ex