We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
from Part V - Commentaries on Lovelock and Margulis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2022
It’s common knowledge that there could be no life as we know it on our planet without the presence of water. Its chemical properties make it the ideal solvent for myriads of biomolecules as well as the source of electrons in oxygenic photosynthesis. These are just a few of the many properties that render water essential for our kind of life. Evidence of extensive aqueous landscapes on our immediate planetary neighbors, Venus and Mars, shows that both planets had abundant water thousands of millions of years ago, probably in part thanks to heavy bombardment by water-bearing comets. However, even if life happened to begin on these planets, this water was lost due to various abiotic processes, whereupon any early life there became extinct. Mars and Venus settled into the extreme dryness that physics and chance have imposed on them. And yet, thanks to Gaia, our planet has successfully retained much of the water she received long ago contemporaneously with Venus and Mars.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
