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Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

blogs.discovermagazine.com

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Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#11

Post by tedajax »

IgorPartola wrote: post #7

Here is a fun fact: only elements up to iron are produced as a result of fission. The rest, including elements essential to human life, elements in your body, are only produced through fusion. Fusion is known to only occur in stars. You are stars.

Um not quite. Fission is where you break apart a heavy element like Uranium.

Fusion occurs in stars and the more massive the star the heavier the elements it can fuse in its core become. However fusing iron into heavy elements is ultimately a net loss in terms of outward pressure so the heaviest element you get from the fusion in the core of stars is iron. Heavier elements can only be synthesized in super nova.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#12

Post by kijin »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #9
IgorPartola wrote: post #7

Here is a fun fact: only elements up to iron are produced as a result of fission. The rest, including elements essential to human life, elements in your body, are only produced through fusion. Fusion is known to only occur in stars. You are stars.

Yes,except it's the other way round. Fusion in normal stars makes elements up to iron. Only supernovae create the rest of the elements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis

I think he meant "only elements down to iron" :p

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#13

Post by IgorPartola »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #9
IgorPartola wrote: post #7

Here is a fun fact: only elements up to iron are produced as a result of fission. The rest, including elements essential to human life, elements in your body, are only produced through fusion. Fusion is known to only occur in stars. You are stars.

Yes,except it's the other way round. Fusion in normal stars makes elements up to iron. Only supernovae create the rest of the elements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis

Hah, you are totally right. Don't know How I forgot/confused the two.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#14

Post by kijin »

This is not surprising at all. What would the alternative be? The protoplantary disk that became the Solar System contained free hydrogen and free oxygen but no compound thereof? That's sounds unlikely.

Water forms naturally given enough hydrogen and oxygen at a wide range of temperatures. Since hydrogen is everywhere, and since main-sequence stars produce tons of oxygen via fusion, there's probably a lot of water floating around in the universe. When a nebula collapses into a protoplanetary disk, the increased density makes it even more likely that gas molecules will meet one another and form compounds.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#15

Post by timdiggerm »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #9
IgorPartola wrote: post #7

Here is a fun fact: only elements up to iron are produced as a result of fission. The rest, including elements essential to human life, elements in your body, are only produced through fusion. Fusion is known to only occur in stars. You are stars.

Yes,except it's the other way round. Fusion in normal stars makes elements up to iron. Only supernovae create the rest of the elements. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis

It says that Lithium, Beryllium and Boron are made by cosmic rays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation

This is crazy.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#16

Post by eapen »

I came to say that this changes everything since I thought the light came first. Still seemed relevant. (not trolling)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, and it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#18

Post by [deleted] »

kijin wrote: post #14

This is not surprising at all. What would the alternative be? The protoplantary disk that became the Solar System contained free hydrogen and free oxygen but no compound thereof? That's sounds unlikely. Water forms naturally given enough hydrogen and oxygen at a wide range of temperatures. Since hydrogen is everywhere, and since main-sequence stars produce tons of oxygen via fusion, there's probably a lot of water fl…

[deleted]

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#19

Post by mkaziz »

eapen wrote: post #16

I came to say that this changes everything since I thought the light came first. Still seemed relevant. (not trolling) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.…

Your quote says that water was already there. :)

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#20

Post by idlewords »

eapen wrote: post #16

I came to say that this changes everything since I thought the light came first. Still seemed relevant. (not trolling) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.…

"And darkness was on the face of the deep". So in other words, the water was there before the light.

Story checks out.

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