scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Is it a requirement of life to have frozen water around?  Couldn't life 
> start on a planet where there were areas that never froze (or at least 
> didn't freeze for long enough for life develop sufficiently)?

  I don't know. There are tons and tons of things that allowed life to
form of Earth, and changing even one of them would have made it a lot
more difficult, if not impossible. (Christians will say that the Earth
is like that because God created it like that. Scientists will simply
point out the anthropic principle: Earth was not created for us. We are
on earth because of all the countless random planets on the Universe Earth
happened to be optimal for the formation of life, so it did.)

  It might be that if the weather system on Earth (over periods of millions
of years) was such that water never froze at large portions of it, it might
be hostile for life for other reasons. Perhaps a changing climate is somehow
necessary for life. As said, I don't know.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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