Why is water abundant on earth but unavailable in the other planets?
In: Chemistry
Earth is the right size and the right temperature for water to remain liquid.
Mars and the moon were too small and their atmospheres drifted away and took any water with it.
Venus is large enough, but was too close to the sun and heated out of control – boiling away any oceans it may have had.
The gas giants are too large, and retained vast atmospheres of lighter gases that buried their solid surface below thousands of miles of pressurized fluid. They have water, but it’s not useful on a planet that’s just infinite boiling hurricanes all the way down.
Out past Mars many of the moons have enormous amounts of water, but it’s frozen solid.
Temperature. Earth sits in what’s called the goldilocks zone (after the story with the three bears). Not too hot, not too cold. On the planets either side of us, Venus is too hot and all the water evaporated away, Mars is too cold and the water is locked as ice.
We could easily melt ice on Mars if we needed water, it’s just not flowing freely. Venus on the other hand is simply too hot.
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