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Astronomers Find Largest Known Extraterrestrial Water Reserve
gerddie writes "Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.
One team, lead by Matt Bradford, made their observations starting in 2008, using an instrument called 'Z-Spec' at the California Institute of Technology's Submillimeter Observatory, a 33-foot (10-meter) telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Follow-up observations were made with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA), an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California. The second group led, by Dariusz Lisused, used the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps to find water. In 2010, this team serendipitously detected water in APM 8279+5255, observing one spectral signature. Bradford's team was able to get more information about the water, including its enormous mass, because they detected several spectral signatures of the water."
12 billion light years away means 12 billion years ago. That water will be scattered asunder by now.
OK astronomers. Let's find some water in space that is actually useful to us. Maybe in our own solar system.
we need to make a canal to bring it to earth
We can just point them to the giant water reserve in the sky. I'm sure they'll leave us alone.
"surrounds a huge, feeding black hole"
In this particular case, I think it's a drinking black hole.
PA-DUM-PUM!
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
"Quasar Springs, all natural reverse-spring water. Our time reversal process uses the natural opposite of springs to bring crisp taste to your table, fresh from not being inside a black hole yet, and at under 99 quadrillion bitcoins per serving."
Discoveries which are economically exploitable (like the discovery of North America) tend to generate more interest. Also and also to be ruined. We'd find some way to spill something into the ocean nebula.
Gently reply
For "Prior Art" Alex.
Damn you Trebeck!
so, let me get this straight
1 light year is like 9,460,730,472,580.8 km ..........km away
12 billion light years will be 9,460,730,472,580.8 * 12 billion = can't imagine how big this is
By now, this black hole might not exist ??? and all the water is gone ?
So basically, there's a freakin' huge ocean floating around (well, falling into a black hole) out in the middle of space? I submit that space is awesome.
I think we should focus on sources closer to home, though.
I wonder what happened to it by now :/
Someone's found the universe's plug-hole. The only question is: does the water go down it clockwise or anticlockwise?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The boys @ NASA are on "the right track" imo, hunting what we're made of largely (as is all life as we know it currently on this sphere/planet @ least).
Sorry for the "Dune-ish" subject-line, but... it IS, how it is, as far as we know on this planet, & probably others too (for lifeforms like ours).
APK
P.S.=> Hopefully, between THIS type of work @ NASA, & IonDrive (& the more efficient pumped laser drives I read of also afterwards) + the work @ SETI @ home (I spent a LOT OF years on "Team Microsoft" for that much)?
We've got a pretty good indicator of where our "cousin lifeforms" may be out there...
I state that, because I don't think that SETI wasn't a waste of time, & will possibly be used as a "prognostication/prediction" device as a sort/form of "stellar 'pre-cartography'" to indicate possible places to explore, first... based on signals detected in various regions of the universe, IN COMBINATION with where the water is!
Hate to say this, but I have to, in closing:
Hopefully though, they're NOTHING LIKE US (or rather, the bogus side of us that is), & can teach us a thing or two about how to co-exist with others like ourselves, in peaceful cooperation, instead of wars & such! I think the "real answers" for us, as humanity, won't come from us here, or they would have by now!
(Yes - Even though we KNOW that philosophy, as well as hard sciences used by the REAL problem solvers in our society that SHOULD BE RUNNING THINGS but are not sadly, already could or can... (I.E.-> Technicians & Scientists, vs. glad hander wealthy power seeking "climbers"))
Yes - we could do the same, w/out "exterior help" - but the current ''system" doesn't allow for it.... again, sadly!
... apk
Figure's that someone from California would find it
The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole....
Which ocean?
This should explain to everyone what "now" is but not what "is" is:Explanation of "Now"
Please don't get me wrong but a reserve 12 billions of years away means it doesn't exist for all practical purposes. This is fine, I don't think this kind of research is supposed to be 'practical' but it raises the question: what's the benefit for us here on Earth? Is the byproduct of the technology that was developed to discover this something we'll use in our daily lives? If so, how? I'm humbly asking this question because I fail to see the benefits of both the discover and the science. Can someone with more knowledge about it light the room?
none
I think these astronomers have been playing Darius a bit too much.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
Well, it won't be water by that point, just a bunch of smushed-together quarks of various flavors.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole"
Sounds like the business model of the movie "Waterworld," if you ask me...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Good change also starts w/ an individual, & radiates, hopefully. Ever heard of "pay-it-forward"? Apparently not, & perhaps YOU ought to TRY it, instead of attempting to project your own problems/weaknesses onto myself then!
See - In MY experience, many times in fact...? Yes, IT WORKS, especially with animals (since you brought them up).
I say that, because of a simple concept:
The little things in life, especially these in life even, matter... because imo @ least?? There's NOTHING bigger! And, change, GOOD CHANGE, starts with YOU!
Recently, I've even "proven" it to myself & others recently with a TOTALLY "feral" cat!
Done this before in the past too with a HUGE 7 toed cat (I called him 7 toes in fact) that hung around my land for 10 yrs. & died on my chest in 1994, & lived his entire LIFE outdoors (often in subzero freezing winters too, only came inside 2x when it hit like 20 below Zero Fahrenheit in fact)...
He died, Thanksgiving day, 1994, in fact as he slept on me... made me HUGELY sad, he was a "good man" that cat...
In fact - Once, after I did not see him for 2-3 yrs. in fact because I moved for work & travelled all around this nation to do so to save for a home of my own?
Well - I came back around here with my then girlfriend, & he came MEOWING & tearing down the driveway to me in fact - Funniest part?
She had cats for decades & said:
"I've never seen a cat do that!"
I told her:
"He's my buddy, and has been for a decade - he'll probably be around LONG after you're gone... " Which she got PISSED AT, but it turned up truth oddly enough!
(At that time it was a decade I knew him, it started off by feeding him, he wouldn't even let me watch him for 6 months, then it was I could watch he eat, & eventually, serious "pals" & I often told him "Women come & go, but you will always be my pal!" & animals 'sense' love & kindness, as well as decent people... Here was the strangest part of all - He wouldn't let ANYONE but my immediate family touch him even (bit tenants we had in fact, lol))
That's an example, especially since you brought up animals...
I did so again, here in fact, recently.
E.G. #2 -> My tenants got a cat, and myself one also from the same litter!
Theirs was totally "wild" & ferocious (& I mean that, you even got NEAR it & it went into "attack" mode, ears down, crouched, & look @ you like it wanted to KILL you - everytime too).
I figured:
"Ok - this poor little bastard's been beaten & mistreated, & only is reacting the ONLY way it knows how to", via defense by offense (almost) - I know what that's like, & being alone ONLY COMPOUNDS IT!
So, I start feeding it, & talking in "kind tones" to it. Within a month? It's now as nice as my kitten is (both, oddly, are sisters from the same litter no less)... but, it won't go near the tenants (whom I have had my share of hassles with I won't go into).
I mean, now, for example? Well - She comes up to me every 5:30-6 a.m. as I water my garden & plays + extends herself for petting (and I give her some food, & milk too).
Good nature IS inherent imo... it really is, unless the studied creature was mistreated first...
Then, they only react the only way they think that keeps them safe by nature with tools God gave them is all.
People aren't much different... usually.
"It's like me trying to teach my dog to be a dog. It doesn't work. I can train her. I can correct her. I can reward her. But she will always be what she was born to be, and she will always have the urge to strain at the leash to play with other dogs she sees on the street." - by Dunbal (464142) * on Saturday July 23, @12:13PM (#36857206)
I've often said this online:
"Dogs are BETTER PEOPLE than people"
They've shown me so more than once (they will give their lives for you out of love... how many folks will do
Well OK, that is a really big bath tub and someone pulled the plug, but which way does it turn?
I think posting things I know work "for the good", & sheerly out of my own free time given, is the right thing to do is all. Funniest part, I have found, is that "what goes around USUALLY comes around"... when I put out wares decades ago I enjoyed as well as my family & friends I wrote? I got a decent amount of notoriety for it... all out of a love of doing something decent on my end, & those who saw my work in family/friends SUGGESTED I ought to put them out for others!
One even ended up as commercial product code... paid decently, & I was happy about it (helped on the resume too even to this very day in fact).
Still... on things I write, & I generally don't "wax philosophical" as I have here (as I usually stick to facts on the topic of the computer sciences 99% of the time usually here on this site @ least)?
Well - I invite debate on them in fact, as I have no issue with that in fact!
(Mainly, because it MAY point out things I overlook & can strengthen my own "pov" with in fact)...
However, in the end of such debates? Well, I rarely get valid points in debates vs. documented facts I use for example... usually ad hominem attacks or sly comments like your own now, are the results from those "debating me" (or, trying to).
APK
P.S.=>
"If your life were "FINE" you wouldn't be spending it posting this kind of incoherent, rambling drivel on Slashdot." - by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23, @01:01PM (#36857530)
Says "the anonymous troll"... and you have the gall/nerve to tell ME how to live my life? Speak for yourself... your thinly veiled easily seen thru "attack" on myself only illustrates this for me, with your own words quoted above.
I feel sorry for your type online, I truly do. Your fav. color MUST BE "Transparent"..., because your reply surely is.
Not a damn thing I posted is "drivel"... I even cited things from my life in the past & recently on the subject noted (animals by Dunbal the poster I replied to in fact), that are, FACT!
... apk
Albert Collins, is that you!?
I have always hoped we would eventually discover proof of life elsewhere in the universe. Maybe this means it is a bit more likely?
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
Does that mean there was water there 12 billion light-years ago, the light from which we are viewing now, therefore it might still be there but we can't tell for sure?
Someone should go nail this article to the foreheads of everyone involved in creating the movie Battle Los Angeles (in which aliens invade earth in order to steal all of our precious, precious water).
galactic enema?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I can't say I'm any sort of metric master, but I'm quite certain 33ft is 11m.
It all goes down the drain..
Dariusz's name is Lis (fox in Polish), not Lisused. second group used
http://www.submm.caltech.edu/~dcl/
Seems like a "reservoir" would be a containment *preventing* the water from rinsing out of the universe.
And, let me press this point, if this all happened 12,000,000,000 years ago, I bet the "reserves" are "low".
The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.
So a feeding black hole is called a quasar... thanks for the *great* summary!
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12 billion light-years away
Then it means there was water there 12 billion years ago. Is there any left?
12 billion light years away means 12 billion years ago. That water will be scattered asunder by now.
I wonder if a cosmologist could check the validity of that statement because it seems to neglect universe expansion. Looking online at APM 08279+5255, its redshift is 3.911. Plugging that into wolframalpha indicates the the lookback time is 12bn years, but that the "actual" distance at this time is nearly 23.7bn lightyears. Redshift: http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/bibobj?2008A%26A...479..703G&APM+08279%2B5255 Wolfram: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=redshift+z%3D3.911&a=FSelect_**LookbackTimeFromRedshift--
Flash, from the department for redundancy department, it's a Feeding Black Hole :)
Aaaaaand you would be quite wrong.
1mtr = 3.281ft
"Hopefully though, they're NOTHING LIKE US (or rather, the bogus side of us that is), & can teach us a thing or two about how to co-exist with others like ourselves, in peaceful cooperation, instead of wars & such! I think the "real answers" for us, as humanity, won't come from us here, or they would have by now!"
Considering much of industrialized US-centered humanity has been busy wiping out extra-terrestrial ocean-based alien intelligences like octopods and whales, and terrestrial ones like trumpeting elephants, and Islamic-banking-interest-free Muslims, I have to wonder if we in the USA could learn any lesson from any "alien"?
One answer is to laugh. :-) See my essay on intrinsic/mutual security: http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all."
Villages full of laughing children is a fundamanetal truth of humanity that we ignore at our own peril... It's too bad we use compulsory schooling and/or napalm to destroy them so often.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Doesn't "reservoir" imply it's reachable, usable as a water reserve? This water was rotating a black hole 12 billion years ago, and was probably all sucked up by the hole or the water molecules ripped apart in the quasar jets by 11.999 billion years ago. I don't think "reservoir" is quite a right word here.
I think it's just to distinguish between a black hole that has an apparent accretion disk and one that doesn't. Obviously a supermassive black hole, something that has an event horizon with a diameter similar to that of the Solar system, is always going to be hoovering up something. But a galaxy with an active black hole is different to the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way for example which is largely quiet at present (Sagittarius A*).
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The light left it long ago, when it was much closer.
Let us say it started out a foot away from me. Since it "started" in the big bang which is what started to expansion, from the first moment it is supposedly moving away from me at 2x the speed of light.
Now how, even one foot away, will that light reach me if the light it pushes "out" is also receding from me at the speed of light?
Perhaps this is some aspects of the physics of light I do not understand, but I don't see how something can reach when when moving away at any velocity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean + huge "tidal" forces from a huge, feeding black hole = KOWABUNGA DUDE!
Somehow there is a Disney movie in here somewhere.
"Space Surfers of APM 8279+5255"... OK its only a working title...