How Water Forms in Interstellar Space at 10K

KentuckyFC writes "Water is the most abundant solid material in space. But although astronomers see it on planets, moons, in comets and in interstellar clouds, nobody has been able to show how it forms. In theory, it should form easily when oxygen and atomic hydrogen meet. The problem is that there is not enough of it floating around as gas in interstellar dust clouds. So instead, the thinking is that water must form when atomic hydrogen interacts with frozen solid oxygen on the surface of dust grains in these clouds. Now Japanese astronomers have demonstrated this process for the first time in the lab in conditions that simulate interstellar space. That's cool because all the water in the solar system, including almost every drop you drink on Earth today, must have formed in exactly this way more than 5 billion years ago in a pre-solar dustcloud (abstract)."

Comments

Re:If that is true

[spun]

I do not give in to terrorists. Someone who loved me wouldn't send me to eternal punishment for finite transgressions. An infinite and all powerful creator God can not desire anything, for being all powerful and infinite they have everything they could want before they want it.

I'm not an Atheist, I'm Agnostic. It's just that, if the Christians are correct out of all the myriad beliefs, I would rather go to hell than submit to an insane terrorist God, which is what the God of the Christians looks like to me, from their own description of him.

atheist?

[Animaether]

I'm curious - why must he be an atheist if he rejects the idea of a God that would leave people in an apparent state of deception (from GP poster's point of view)?

He could just as easily believe in a different God, or multiple Gods, or etc. which to him/her is truthful in every way.

Or he could be agnostic, saying that there may very well be a God, or multiple gods, but that he doesn't believe that the God described in OP is the kind of God he would choose to believe in.

--

As for the 26 words... I know human beings more benevolent and loving like that. I, for one, don't need the love of a random stranger in order for me to help them in any which way I can if I concern myself with their person. Put differently, from the perspective of somebody who were not to believe in 'God', what would 'God' have done for them that would have him deserve their love? On the up side - those who don't believe in God typically don't believe in Hell and all that, and probably couldn't care less about what God thinks and demands, as it becomes a moot issue.

Re:Sure looks that way

[Planesdragon]

The problem is that the Earth doesn't have sufficient gravity to hold free hydrogen What are you talking about?

Sure, hydrogen released at sea level will rise to the outer surface of the atmosphere. But that's only because it's the least dense gas in existence, and all the other heavier gases push it up due their own higher gravity. Eventually, the hydrogen would reach a point where the pull of gravity and the "push" of the rest of the atmosphere would even out.

Some hydrogen will get away due to thermal escape (an individual molecule moving fast enough to have escape velocity), but the earth will also collect some hydrogen due to the solar wind and its ordinary passage through space.

I wager that the 1ppm we have of atmospheric hydrogen is a few orders of magnitude greater than the atomic hydrogen present in the vacuum of space -- even if we disregard the amount of hydrogen that has bonded with oxygen in our little dust-ball.