[ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets)

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson
>.

 

>. As far as I'm aware, water is the only liquid that becomes less dense
upon freezing. Otherwise, the oceans would fill up with ice from the bottom
up. Ices are clearly not as good for life as liquid. 

 

>.If ammonia or another liquid does the same thing, I'm unaware of that.

 

>.-Kelly

 

 

Silicon, bismuth, and (under some conditions) tin are like that too: the
solid form is less dense than the liquid phase.  From my vague recollection,
water is the lowest freezing point of known substances with this property at
1 atmosphere.  Recall that there could be other compounds we don't normally
experience in their liquid/solid interface, so we might not even know.
Also, there are different phases of a solid, depending on the ambient
pressure when it froze.  There might even be phases of water ice we still
haven't discovered because it only forms under higher pressures than we
know.  What if, for instance, we had an interplanetary sphere of water the
size of our planet?  

 

Ain't science kewall?

 

{8-]

 

spike

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