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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

#61

Post by swombat »

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…

> 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.

Don't forget those trace amounts of elements produced by our pathetic attempts at creating a fusion reactor on Earth! And all the material created by natural fission decay of fissile materials in the Earth's crust and elsewhere...

The "probably" is unnecessary. Until the sun explodes and expels the core of "new material" that it's created by fusion inside of it, ALL the non-hydrogen material in the solar system can be said to have resulted from the explosion of some much older star.

And given that our Sun is (thankfully) still in the hydrogen-burning phase of the main sequence, even if it did explode all we'd get for it is Helium.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#62

Post by scott_s »

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…

The alternative would be that most of the water around now would have formed during or after the stellar collapse that resulted in our solar system.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#63

Post by krapp »

_urga wrote: post #44
krapp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you want to disprove the Christian faith (faith in the historical person of Jesus Christ), then you need to make up your mind about the positive and negative historical sources concerning him, their closeness in time to him (historical distance), and the textual reliability of those sources. See Paul Barnett's "Jesus And The Logic Of History" for the historical method as applied to Jesus: http://www.amazon.com/Jes…

I'm not interested in proving it or disproving it, but rather just pointing out that Christianity keeps disproving itself, particularly when it comes to interpreting something like Genesis as anything but an ancient fable.

Using science to try to validate a creation myth thousands of years removed from its intended cultural and political context seems kind of absurd - and a lot of Christians would agree with me anyway, so it's not even that irreligious a point of view.

I would argue this is neither good science nor good religion. Both should accept that the map is not the destination, and that although some models are momentarily useful, none are necessarily true. Genesis is a beautiful story which had a point and a purpose in its time and place but it didn't happen. We know it didn't happen because the evidence against its account is overwhelming (unless you reinterpret the account, but then there's no possible way the original Hebrews meant for the story to take into consideration fundamental truths about geology and astronomy which they had no concept of at the time.)

That said though, I wish there could be a thread about these sorts of things without the incessant drive-by downvoting. Or at least without the censorship of the downvote mechanism.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#64

Post by scott_s »

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.…

I downvoted you because religious discussions are classic internet flamewar topics. We'd like to avoid those.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#65

Post by autokad »

coldcode wrote: post #59

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.

i guess it depends if it came before or after the formation of our moon. If the mars-ish sized planet wacking into us theory is true, probably not much if it came before and just re-condensed after the collision.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#66

Post by autokad »

tjradcliffe wrote: post #6
unclebunkers wrote: post #2

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

Particularly when paired with recent detection of water in the atmosphere of an extra-solar planet: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/24/water-small-w... Water, water, everywhere... There are people who don't understand what a big deal this is. They think that because this small blue dot happens to have a lot of water, and there is evidence of water elsewhere in the solar system, that water must be common.…

its worth noting that all this article did was show that hydrogen (not water) was present in abundance? Unless I am taking that wrong. and if i am taking it right, a great big 'DUH' as hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#67

Post by esaym »

lotharbot wrote: post #32
themodelplumber wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm curious, which Christian sects think this means the Sun was literally created at that point? I am a Christian but I'm not all Christians, so that kind of reading is new to me and feels rather odd.

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…

I think Moses would disagree with you :)

Exo 20:11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#68

Post by lotharbot »

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.

The particular form of excessive "everything everywhere is literal" Biblical literalism most Americans are familiar with is about a hundred years old, and arose in response to a fairly excessive "everything everywhere is allegory" Biblical non-literalism from the late 1800s.

In the past there was typically a balance. St. Basil the Great (~329 to 379) wrote "to take the literal sense and stop there, is to have the heart covered by the veil of Jewish literalism. Lamps are useless when the sun is shining." but balanced that sentiment with "There are those, truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own end."

FWIW Basil emphasized a 24 hour day, but he also describes the elements of air-fire-water "hidden" in the earth: "Do not ask, then, for an enumeration of all the elements; guess, from what Holy Scripture indicates, all that is passed over in silence." (I have quoted elsewhere other scholars from both before and after him who found a slightly more figurative balance point with regard to the same passage.)

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#69

Post by lotharbot »

esaym wrote: post #67
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…

I think Moses would disagree with you :) Exo 20:11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

On the other hand, Jesus tells us that male and female were made at the "beginning" of creation, when Genesis 1 clearly puts them in day 6. And even Moses' writing in Genesis 2 shows us the creation of man, and then plants, and then woman, which would place the day 3 creation of plants firmly in the middle of day 6. This suggests that what is meant by "day" isn't what we're inclined to think of in our 21st century mindset.

Moses was adopted to Egyptian royalty, and wrote a creation account that subverts the Egyptian account. Reading the Torah without an Egyptian background is like watching West Side Story without knowing Romeo and Juliet, or watching Shrek without knowing Prince Charming. You'll miss all the references, or think their importance is for a different reason than it actually is.

Re: Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

#70

Post by lotharbot »

themodelplumber wrote: post #38
jjsalamon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time of writing there is only 1 parent comment poking fun at the bible. Let's not get too delicate here.

Only one parent comment sure, but it was the second comment on the page at the time, and is currently the longest thread on the page. Nothing wrong with calling it out.

that "longest thread" includes some moderately enlightening comments which are not at all anti-religion, but are challenging in a good way.

.

disclosure: I wrote some of them ;)

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