What is the water cycle and how does water move around Earth?
Water's Endless Loop
What is the water cycle and how does water move around Earth?
Here's a strange fact to start your day: the water in your glass is old. Really old. Some of it might have rolled in an ancient ocean, drifted as a cloud, or splashed off a dinosaur's nose. Earth never makes new water — it just keeps moving the same water around, over and over, on a loop we call the water cycle.
The loop starts with a magic trick called evaporation. When the Sun warms an ocean, a lake, or a puddle, the water at the top gets so energetic it stops being a liquid and turns invisible. It floats up into the sky as a gas called water vapor. You can't see it, but it's there — rising off every warm surface like steam off a mug of tea.
