• Question: What is water?

    Asked by 235689jack to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 15 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hi jack. Water is a very important molecule made up of two hydrogen atoms joined to an oxygen atom, so we give it the chemical formula H2O. Most other molecules with a small number of atoms are gasses like carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen and hydorgen sulfide. But water is special because it has something called ‘hydrogen bonding’. This means that each molecule is attracted to lots of water molecules around it, so water is more dense than you would expext and it is a liquid at room temperature. Without hydorgen bonding water would be a gas as well and life would not have evolved on earth at all!

    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Its the clear runny stuff that comes out of our taps and falls from the skys a LOT these days.
      Sorry – couldn’t resist.
      Its got 2 hydrogen molecules and 1 oxygen molecule – so H2O

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hi Jack,
      Check this animation out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiZJOTt3Dl0&feature=related

    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      Hi again 235689jack!
      The others have covered lots about water, but there’s one extra thing that’s fascinating, and that is that we live in exactly the right conditions on Earth to experience all three forms of water occurring naturally – solid ice, liquid water and gas vapour. There are very few other chemicals that do that!
      Because all three states of water can exist together, it’s called the “triple point”, and this is really important for how our Earth is shaped. Without liquid water we wouldn’t have life, or rivers, or seas, without gas vapour we wouldn’t have rain, or rivers, without ice we wouldn’t have rocks broken down into soil for plants to start growing in – so everything would be very different.

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