the helium thing was just a wild example, i didnt write it as a real example. just to show what i meant by "something different than water".... geez
I know, but you happened to use as an wild example the very element which would be least likely to be used for a water 'replacement'LOL
The polar molecules like water will tend to be lopsided in regards to electric charge, therefore they can lend themselves more readily to bonding via dipole-dipole bonding. Its going to be much more difficult to bond noble gases and otherwise 'symmetrical' molecules like o2 and atoms like helium unless we apply extremly high pressures and extremely low temperatures to create London dispersion forces which will cause them to bond only temporarily and instantaneously, but otherwise we can consider it impractical for them to bond.
The thing about water is that it has a unique bond which no other molecule possesses called hydrogen bonding which keeps the freezing point at 0 degrees celcius, if we take a noble gas like helium we would have to decrease the temperature to -268.785 C. Helium has the lowest melting point of all the elements. Maybe someone can tell us how far you would need to be from a heat source like our sun in order to reach such a temperature, I guess it would depend upon how much heat the particular star produces, and the following properties of any theoretical planet would need to be the same as earth.
1)The size and shape of the planet(any amount of sun would be hotter at the equator of the sphere, it would be colder and colder as it approaches the poles, depending upon how big the planet is that can be a fairly large temperature differential
2)The axis tilt of the planet. Like earth, if there is a particular tilt of the planet in respect to the sun then there would be differeing areas of concentration during different stages of the planets orbit.
3)rotation around axis, obvious 'day' temperature differentials
4)revolution around its star, obvious year temp differentials
As you can see there are a lot of factors to consider, I have just
scratched a scratch on the surface.
Anyway, Im not arguing with you, just posting a knowledge dump in case anyone is interested in discussing what and or how life could exist without the conditions which we have.
