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Solar System's Water Is Older Than the Sun

astroengine writes Next time you're swimming in the ocean, consider this: part of the water is older than the sun. So concludes a team of scientists who ran computer models comparing the ratios of hydrogen isotopes over time. Taking into account new insights that the solar nebula had less ionizing radiation than previously thought, the models show that at least some of the water found in the ocean, as well as in comets, meteorites and on the moon, predate the sun's birth.

3 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Water Molecules by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe that they are only considering the water molecules: the hydrogen atoms which make up water will be as old as the Big Bang. However since there are ice-based comets out there I hardly find it surprising that there was water in the solar system before the sun formed. Aren't the comets supposed to be the left over debris from the formation of the sun and planets? So this result seems to be just confirmation what we already knew.

  2. Re:Score one for the other team by halivar · · Score: 1, Informative

    Anything other than an allegorical OEC reading is inconsistent with the historical understanding of the poetic nature of biblical prophetic visions as they appear in Genesis or Revelation, or whatever. YEC'er's trying to draw pseudoscientific observations from Genesis 1 understand as little about scripture as they do science.

  3. Re:Score one for the other team by neilo_1701D · · Score: 1, Informative

    I never said the Sun was a first generation star. I said it was a Population I star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity#Population_I_stars)

    Huge difference.

    From Wikipedia:
    Population I, or metal-rich stars, are young stars with the highest metallicity out of all three populations. The Earth's Sun is an example of a metal-rich star. These are common in the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy.

    Population II, or metal-poor stars, are those with relatively little metal.

    Population III, or metal-free stars, are a hypothetical extinct population of extremely massive and hot stars with virtually no surface metals, except for a small quantity of metals formed in the Big Bang, such as lithium-7. These stars are believed to have been formed in the early universe. Their existence is inferred from cosmology, but they have not yet been observed directly.