Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun • Hacker News Board

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#51

Post by alphydan » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 9:57 AM UTC

SergeyDruid wrote: post #46

Interesting article. Now that I think of it, how comes that in all the (known) universe we have ice or ice blocks (such as comets)? Where from does it originates?

I don't know about the rest of the universe, but our comets are supposed to come from the Oort Cloud [1].

The rest of the water needs Hydrogen (The most abundant element in the Universe) and Oxygen (generated by nucleosynthesis in the first generations of stars [2])

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#52

Post by tim333 » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 9:58 AM UTC

cristianpascu wrote: post #45

unclebunkers wrote: post #2

This greatly increases my expectations of life on other planets if true.

Water is one of zillions of elements that need to get together for there to be life. Expectations increasing? Yes. Greatly? :)

It's a big one though. You also need a planet with a suitable temperature. Beyond that most of the other stuff seems pretty much everywhere.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#53

Post by roghummal » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 9:59 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #41

lotharbot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christian Fundamentalism (which is a decidedly American/English sect, 100 years old this year) is the only sect I'm aware of that takes a hard-line literalist approach to Genesis 1, and even among them there's argument as to whether the sun is literally created at that time or if it becomes visible somehow. (That idea is fairly old -- I was just reading Aquinas' take on it, written in the 1200s: http://www.ccel.org/c…

Biblical literalism is much older than 100 years, though different groups in history may have chosen different parts to take literally.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#54

Post by tim333 » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 10:03 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #27

negamax wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inclination of religious people to prove their texts to be relevant in light of scientific discoveries is interesting trend. And I see it everywhere, in all religions. Have you heard of term scientific religion?

What other choice can religious people make and still remain religious? It can't be the Word of God if it can be disproven, but of course the goalposts of interpretation can always be moved. I mean, it's no longer dogma that the universe is written on crystal spheres surrounding the perfect sphere of Earth, because it can't be... but Genesis is still vague enough that it can be handwaved to justify anything else scie…

> It can't be the Word of God if it can be disproven

Maybe He was just kidding

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#55

Post by SergeyDruid » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 10:14 AM UTC

alphydan wrote: post #51

SergeyDruid wrote: post #46

Interesting article. Now that I think of it, how comes that in all the (known) universe we have ice or ice blocks (such as comets)? Where from does it originates?

I don't know about the rest of the universe, but our comets are supposed to come from the Oort Cloud [1]. The rest of the water needs Hydrogen (The most abundant element in the Universe) and Oxygen (generated by nucleosynthesis in the first generations of stars [2]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleosynthesis

[1] So basically we can say that objects such as Oort Cloud are directly connected with the formation of a system and as such they're tied with the star formation itself?

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#56

Post by SergeyDruid » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 10:19 AM UTC

jk4930 wrote: post #50

SergeyDruid wrote: post #46

Interesting article. Now that I think of it, how comes that in all the (known) universe we have ice or ice blocks (such as comets)? Where from does it originates?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welteislehre ;)

Fascinating theory regarding the ice, however, regarding the formation:

"According to the idea, the solar system had its origin in a gigantic star into which a smaller, dead, waterlogged star fell. This impact caused a huge explosion which flung fragments of the smaller star out into interstellar space where the water condensed and froze into giant blocks of ice. A ring of such blocks formed, which we now call the Milky Way, as well as a number of solar systems among which was our own, but with many more planets than currently exist."

maybe too far fetched? If it was like that we would have already spotted similar galactic formations outside of the Milky Way

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#57

Post by unclebunkers » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 10:37 AM UTC

cristianpascu wrote: post #45

unclebunkers wrote: post #2

This greatly increases my expectations of life on other planets if true.

Water is one of zillions of elements that need to get together for there to be life. Expectations increasing? Yes. Greatly? :)

It's about 24. There are about 24 different elements found in the least element diverse life forms on earth if I recall.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#58

Post by dalore » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 10:59 AM UTC

Woah, think of the impact this has on homeopathy! With water having memory, that memory goes back to older than our sun.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#59

Post by coldcode » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 12:41 PM UTC

I've always wondered what percentage of water molecules on the earth have always been water molecules, i.e. since they became H20 how many have been separated by chemical processes and later recombined back into water. How you estimate that is beyond me.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#60

Post by scott_s » Fri, Sep 26, 2014, 1:46 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #48

baxterross wrote: post #39

the sun's hydrogen is older than the sun. boom.

Yes, the title of the article is kind of shitty, and obvious. All elements in the solar systems (except those being formed in the sun's core) are older than the sun, probably the result of the explosion of some much older stars. But what the article is really trying to say, is that it's "normal" that our solar system has (this much) water. > If our solar system’s formation was typical, cosmically speaking, then the f…

It's actually not obvious. All elements in the solar system are older than the sun. But water is not an element, it is a molecule: two hydrogens, one oxygen. So it's not a given that the water in our solar system became water before the stellar collapse that resulted in our sun. I could also conceive of the water and oxygen combining during that collapse.