Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space

http://www.fastcompany.com/1769468/scientist-discover-the-oldest-largest-body-of-water-in-existence-in-space

by mikeleeorg • 14 years ago

64 17 14 years ago

conanite• 14 years ago

  The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as
  desolate and desert dry, but it's turning out to be pretty
  lush.

Why did "we" (who?) think this? Hydrogen is everywhere, oxygen is common, they bind easily, there must be quite a lot of water out there. Although 28 galaxies' worth of water all in one place is still impressive.

planetguy4• 14 years ago

28 galaxies' worth of water all in one place is still impressive

Sure, if you want to use bullshit mathematics to get that "28 galaxies" number I guess you can make it sound impressive.

The amount of water in all the Earth's oceans is a miniscule proportion of the amount of water in the solar system, though. The Kuiper Belt, the Oort Cloud, the moons of the outer planets -- all these solid bodies are made up largely of water ice (mixed with ammonia and methane, plus a bunch of rock). The real wet spots of the solar system, though, are the giant planets themselves -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Uranus and Neptune are ice giants, made up mostly of the water-ammonia-methane mixture that we lazy scientists just call "ice". Let's estimate it at something like five Earth masses worth of water in each planet. Jupiter and Saturn consist basically of huge seas of hydrogen-helium which accreted around an initial ice-rock core; a much lower share of their mass is water, but a good handwavey estimate would be something on the order of five Earth masses' worth of water in each of those, too. [Left out: a bunch of details and caveats.]

So we're talking roughly 20 times the mass of the Earth of water in the solar system. (The Oort Cloud, Kuiper Belt, all the icy moons, and the Earth's oceans themselves are a rounding error.)

Now, let's recompute. Total amount of water in this particular object is 140 trillion times the amount of water in all the Earth's oceans, which comes down to about 28 billion Earth masses' worth of water, or enough to form about five billion Neptunes. Latest estimates suggest that Neptune-like planets are extremely common, so there is almost certainly far more water in Neptunes just in our own galaxy than in this big cloud.

Still, quite a lot of water.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Do you know of any references on the behavior of molecular water in space? Specifically whether or not there is a mass value which would be a modestly stable liquid?

So nominally in a vacuum water sublimates into vapor, but at very low temperatures it stays ice. So you've got these icy bodies in the Kuiper belt which become comets when their orbits take them past the Sun. Typically, a comet is 'solid' but solar insolation causes it to evaporate/sublimate giving it the characteristic tail (correct me if I'm wrong here on this).

So what I'm wondering is, could you have a 'water' planet which was basically a blob of water surrounded by presumably a CO2/NO2 atmosphere? Could it be liquid all the way through or would its 'core' always be solid?

roc• 14 years ago

> "The amount of water in all the Earth's oceans is a miniscule proportion of the amount of water in the solar system, though"

Not only in proportion to the entire solar system, but also just in the context of our own planet. We think of Earth as a wet place because we keep hearing that two-thirds of the surface is covered in the stuff. But it's an incredibly thin coat.

At its deepest points the ocean is what, eleven kilometers deep? From there it's another six thousand kilometers to the core.

We're more a rock with a thin sheen of water than we are appreciably 'wet'.

BSM2162• 14 years ago

Yes but remember its 12 billion light years away and that's REALLY far away

scott_s• 14 years ago

The problem I had with that sentence is that even if we find places with lots of stuff, it's still true that space is still mostly space.

aoe• 14 years ago

> But it was only 40 years ago, in 1969, that scientists first confirmed that water existed anywhere besides Earth.

Could anyone tell me more about this? Couldn't find anything relevant from a quick Google search.

planetguy4• 14 years ago

Try "water detected 1969" and the first result is http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1969Natur.221..626C

Still bullshit, however. Comets have been known to contain water since the first spectra were taken in the mid 19th century.

crazygringo• 14 years ago

Researchers found a lake of water so large...

...the water vapor is the finest mist...

Calling it a lake is totally wrong then. I was really disappointed when I discovered, reading further down, that this isn't a humongous blob of solid water, a space-lake, after all... :( Not sure if even qualifies as a "body" of water, more like an "atmosphere" of water vapor...

Sharlin• 14 years ago

Even more like a "vacuum with some water molecules here and there". Even the densest of molecular gas clouds in space are still harder vacuums than anything that can be achieved in an Earth lab.

BSM2162• 14 years ago

No it's 12 BILLION light years away and its enough to supply trillions of earth lille planets

sidcool• 14 years ago

Why is this upvoted? The news is months old.

Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Existence--In Space

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