The water has some very important properties, based on its polarity and capacity to create hydrogen bonds to help support Earth's fitness for life, including its ability to moderate temperature, its cohesive behavior, its expansion upon freezing, and its versatility as a solvent.
One of the "miracles" water performs is that the ice can float on water. This can happen because hydrogen bonds water molecules create between each other can break and re-form through molecular motion. However, the hydrogen bonds will become stable at a certain temperature (0 degree Celsius), and the bonds will form a crystalline structure while the water molecules become farther from each other. Therefore, that's why the ice is less dense than water and, as a result, the ice floats on water.
The Crystalline Structure of Ice
- Andy Liu '15
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