A Tale of Two Planets

Below you can read on the momentous discovery by Butler et al. of an Earth like planet.

In The Economist you can read about the mysteries of water.

As far as I can tell, part of the brouhaha  is the possible existence of liquid water in Gliese 581g.

We do not understand water on Earth, that is the point of The Economist article linked above, and we give an extreme value to the possible existence of water on Gliese 581g. What gives?

I write a ``Tale of Two Planets'' here.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were two planets twenty light years apart. One was called Earth, the other Gliese 581g. Water on both was almost magical, when close to hydrophilic surfaces it got organized with their respective star's light. The red dwarf Gliese 581, did not have that much infrared light around 3 $\mu$m, the Earth did. This lucky break for Earth made life in the oceans possible; Gliese 581g remained lifeless; providing the people of Earth ``One Hundred Years of Solitude.''