Water Detected At Record Distance From Earth

Matt_dk writes with news that scientists have detected water in a galaxy 11.5 billion light-years from Earth. Evidence came in the form of emissions from water masers around a quasar at the center of the galaxy. Detection at such a large distance was made possible by a closer, intervening galaxy which acted as a gravitational lens. "'We were only able to discover this distant water with the help of the gravitational lens,' said Violette Impellizzeri, an astronomer with the Max-Planck Institute for Radioastronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany. 'This cosmic telescope reduced the amount of time needed to detect the water by a factor of about 1,000,' she added. The astronomers first detected the water signal with the Effelsberg telescope. They then turned to the VLA's sharper imaging capability to confirm that it was indeed coming from the distant galaxy. The gravitational lens produces not one, but four images of MG J0414+0534 as seen from Earth. Using the VLA, the scientists found the specific frequency attributable to the water masers in the two brightest of the four lensed images. The other two lensed images, they said, are too faint for detecting the water signal. The radio frequency emitted by the water molecules was Doppler shifted by the expansion of the Universe from 22.2 GHz to 6.1 GHz."

Comments

Water means life?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

We try to think about life as it may exist outside of our planet and solar system, but we always run into the problem of defining the term life. Because of our limited understanding, we search for pockets of water, which ought to at least provide a certain frame of reference close to our own in which we could find something that resembles life as we know it.

But we may also be overlooking life that we just don't understand and haven't the means to detect yet. Life as a system of planets, taking millenia to process a single thought. Life as rapidly integrating and disintegrating iron meshes on the surface of stars, communicating electrically and going through thousands of generations in seconds.

Finding water at these distances isn't so much the search for alternate worlds to habitate when we lose our Earth, it is much more a search for life similar to ours. But perhaps, I wonder, we are missing a whole range of other life in the universe due to our lack of capacity to imagine other types of life.

Re:Water means life?

[bradbury]

The points here are valid. Robert Freitas wrote a book (Xenology) nearly 30 years ago which explored how other life forms might develop and evolve. I am sure that an even more expansive discussion on the topic could be written now. The "water" phase period for intelligent life forms may well vary, but it is not a requirement for non-water based start-ups (covered in Xenology) or post-water based existences, e.g. Dyson shells or their more sophisticated derivatives (Matrioshka Brains).

It is a shame that current physicists are using valuable resources to search for "life" within such a limited framework. When we have available concepts of non-water-staged life and post-water-staged life upon which we can draw. It can even be argued that the "water-state" basis of life is a minimal state in the Universe. (Given that Matrioshka Brains have lifetimes that may exceed even those of stars.)