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

5 billion years ago ?

[Daas]

Isn't the universe like 6000 years old ? Oh, and earth really is flat.

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is everyone so hung up on this? Why does every article that has anything remotely to do with cosmology or biology have a huge thread about this bullshit? Get over it.

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like some mods need to have their "funny" discriminator calibrated.

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[Planesdragon]

The more we learn, the more obvious it becomes that life, far from being a unique or rare thing in the universe, is actually an inevitable natural process... So far we have ONLY found life on one planet-- a planet that has liquid water, a single moon relatively large compared to the planet's mass, active volcanic and tectonic activity, a strong magnetosphere, and an active weather system.

While we have theorized that not all of those are needed, the truth is that we haven't found so much as a single primitive cell anywhere else. And we haven't found one single location in the entire universe with all five save for our home planet.

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[Planesdragon]

Where were all the people claiming that "God Time" worked on a different scale before we discovered the true age of the Universe? The same place the scientists were?

No, really. For hundreds of years the scientific notion was that the universe had always existed, and the idea of a "beginning" to the planet--let alone the cosmos--was just religious claptrap.

And if you want to get really specific, the concept that time is a fluid construct of your local frame of reference pre-dates serious scientific discussion as to the begining of the universe.

(Of course, if you're willing to prove me wrong, and can dig up a reference to "god-time" before the Big Bang theory, I'd love to hear it.)

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[BountyX]

Based upon the genealogy of the patriarchs as contained in Scripture, once one has determined the date of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, one should be able to arrive at a reasonably close determination for the Date of Creation. That dates creation around ~4106 BC. Also, christians are required by the gospel to accept the bible as the absolute word of god with no exceptions. If you do not fully believe in the virgin birth, jesus's ressurection, the flood, etc. then you are not christian by definition of the bible.

I prefer the Jefferson Bible, he removed all the BS from the bible. It cut the bible from 1660 (the one I found in my trash) to 46 pages of useful information.

Re:5 billion years ago ?

[saider]

It does not specify the date, but it does establish a time interval (6 days = 144 hours). Unless God-days are different from our days. The trouble with re-interpreting the Bible is that once you do it in one spot, you open the door to do it all over. And then you end up with N sub-sects which all interpret the Bible in their own way to meet their own agendas.

What I see troubling with the philosophy of reinterpreting things is that people start reinterpreting the wrong ideas. First you redefine how long a day is, then you redefine how long people live, and the next thing you know, astrology is classified as science because you have redefined "logic" to meet your religious needs.

People need to realize that the Bible is a shitty science and history book and was written to an end.

Am I the only person?

[neokushan]

That thinks this article was a tad poorly written?

For example...

Water forms in interstellar space at 10k

Forgive my possible ignorance, but 10k what? Degrees? (Celsius or Kelvin?) Pascals? Distance? Does a postfixed "K" represent something different within the scientific community that I simply didn't know about?

Re:So if you can't take it literally...

[digitrev]

Not fiction, but an allegory and analogy designed to explain to early people the history regarding their existence. The fact is, simpler stories on short time scales tended to work well because the human brain has a hard time with large numbers. A day is just long enough for you when your life expectancy is ~30 years.

Re:So if you can't take it literally...

[Animaether]

So now that humankind is capable of dealing with large numbers and such quite easily (and I think it's odd to think that civilization back then would have a hard time understanding 'billions of years' but nodded at 'and the water turned into wine' as if that was perfectly reasonable), is there any edition of The Bible (presumably unofficial) that has everything re-written in the "what it meant to say, but us puny humans wouldn't have understood back in the day, is ..."?

To hook into your sibling poster's comment... a presumably 'non-fictional' work, that indeed could be taken literally (whether the statements within be true or false left aside)?

However

[spun]

Would you please stop modding Planesdragon down for defending his beliefs? That's just crass.

I agree that we should toss christianity

[tjstork]

I, personally, will not get over it. Too much progress has been made despite christianity's best efforts to hold it back, I refuse to let them regain any ground.

I agree. Were it not for christianity, we could have stronger, Roman values, and could merely justify the extermination of our enemies because they were weaker.

Look, you have all of these people arguing against the USA military actions around the world, as if, there was some sort of a cosmic judge that holds us wrong. This planet lives at the mercy of the USA and it is high time we make it pay for us.

The sooner we get rid of religion, and focus on survival of the fittest, we can eliminate the silly notions of the soul and with it the idea of fundamental rights. From there, we can proceed with the extermination of the third world, replacing weaker cultures with a stronger industrialized one, keeping the planet for those who have the values to use it, not merely subsistent parasites that besmirch the very name of humanity with their almost termite like existence.

Re:I agree that we should toss christianity

[tjstork]

Here here let's return to Christianity's roots. Let's bring back the good old days of slavery, rape, sodomy, torture, and bigotry.

Julius Caesar got himself elected Consul of Rome partially on his own campaign book which extolled his achievements in killing a million people in Gaul.

If Caeser were alive today, there wouldn't be anyone in Iraq left, and, forget this whole mission of liberating the Iraqi people. He would have just said flat out that he was going to take the oil.

We didn't get started on Pharoahs.. They were always bragging about smiting their enemies. That's smiting, not just killing them, but smiting them.

You know, we should just screw the whole constitution and get a Pharoah.

Re:I agree that we should toss christianity

[tjstork]

Just where exactly did you learn about those Roman values that justify the extermination of our enemies? It seems to me that you don't know much - perhaps nothing - about Romans. If there was ever a civilization that was fair with the people it conquered, it was Roma.

You are a sucker for Roman propaganda. You believe that the Romans were fair with their enemies because the Romans said they were. But, what part of these highlights exemplify fairness?

a) siege of carthage. large city of ancient rival destroyed to the ground, earth salted, inhabitants sold into slavery... keep in mind that the Romans basically trumped up charges to start the final punic war... Carthage had already been bankrupted by the previous wars as was no longer really anything.

b) siege of jerusalem. local religious centers destroyed. inhabitants sold into slavery. plundered gold and silver bought coloseum.

c) conquest of gaul... that's caesar's biggy. he brags about killing tons of people.

But really, if you want to look at it, what was the justification for Roman expansion? With the Romans, they always had some high minded idea about civilization that they preached, but in the end, their soldiers always brought home plenty of captured gold and silver.

In fact, let's talk about Roman practices. Imagine if our army was like the Roman army. When Hannibal attacked Italy, at one battle, the Roman army -ran-. As a result, the man assigned to command the army actually ordered a round of by then ancient punishment (rome was already hundreds of years old), called decimation, and they walked along with swords and killed one in ten of their own men where they stood for cowardice of the entire unit. They didn't run again.

Re:If that is true

[hcdejong]

Someone who loved me wouldn't send me to eternal punishment for finite transgressions. That's not what hell is about. Ultimately, going to heaven or hell isn't decided by how much you've done right or wrong, it's decided by whether or not you recognize God as your saviour. You get to choose: be in God's presence (heaven) or be where He's not (hell). If you hate him so much, I expect you couldn't stand being around him for eternity.
The only problem is that you get to make that choice only once, here on earth, with imperfect knowledge (which is why it's called 'faith', not 'science'). You can resent that, but here's a secret: there's a 'sure bet'. Live life as a Christian. If it turns out there's no God, you've lived a good life, the people around you will thank you for it, and you can go to dust in peace. If there is a God, you'll end up in heaven instead of the other place.

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. Rubbish. I'd expect that for an omnipotent God, creating beings that blindly obey him would be unbearably dull. God deliberately created us with free will.