
Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun - acak
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2014/09/25/earths-water-is-older-than-the-sun/#.VCSWtSldUnR
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dalore
Woah, think of the impact this has on homeopathy! With water having memory,
that memory goes back to older than our sun.

~~~
adwf
Cue a hunt for the oldest water on the planet, market it as "Interstellar
Miracle Cure!"

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unclebunkers
This greatly increases my expectations of life on other planets if true.

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cristianpascu
Water is one of zillions of elements that need to get together for there to be
life. Expectations increasing? Yes. Greatly? :)

~~~
tim333
It's a big one though. You also need a planet with a suitable temperature.
Beyond that most of the other stuff seems pretty much everywhere.

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coldcode
I've always wondered what percentage of water molecules on the earth have
always been water molecules, i.e. since they became H20 how many have been
separated by chemical processes and later recombined back into water. How you
estimate that is beyond me.

~~~
scott_s
How you estimate it is the third paragraph of the submission: compare the
ratios of hydrogen to deuterium (hydrogen with a neutron).

~~~
AnimalMuppet
No, that's how you estimate something completely different - the age of the
hydrogen atoms that make up the water.

I believe that the GP's point is something like this: It says "the water is
older than the sun", but what it really means is " _the hydrogen atoms in the
water_ are older than the sun".

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scott_s
The subsequent paragraphs explain how they go from "age of hydrogen atoms" to
"age of the water." If you want more detail than is in the article (which is
understandable), then you'll have to refer to the published paper.

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PierreDow
Despite the media fanfare
([http://www.pressreader.com/bookmark/7WFY0PDVE4Z/TextView](http://www.pressreader.com/bookmark/7WFY0PDVE4Z/TextView)),
I have some reservations giving credibility to a single model-generated study.
Not to say it’s groundless, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet.

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baxterross
the sun's hydrogen is older than the sun. boom.

~~~
tomp
Yes, the title of the article is kind of shitty, and obvious. All elements in
the solar systems (except those being formed in the sun's core) are older than
the sun, probably the result of the explosion of some much older stars.

But what the article is really trying to say, is that it's "normal" that our
solar system has (this much) water.

 _> If our solar system’s formation was typical, cosmically speaking, then the
findings imply that interstellar ices are in healthy supply for all up-and-
coming planetary systems. And since all life we know of depends on water, that
news improves the odds that other planetary systems have what it takes to
support life._

~~~
swombat
> _All elements in the solar systems (except those being formed in the sun 's
> core) are older than the sun, probably the result of the explosion of some
> much older stars._

Don't forget those trace amounts of elements produced by our pathetic attempts
at creating a fusion reactor on Earth! And all the material created by natural
fission decay of fissile materials in the Earth's crust and elsewhere...

The "probably" is unnecessary. Until the sun explodes and expels the core of
"new material" that it's created by fusion inside of it, ALL the non-hydrogen
material in the solar system can be said to have resulted from the explosion
of some much older star.

And given that our Sun is (thankfully) still in the hydrogen-burning phase of
the main sequence, even if it did explode all we'd get for it is Helium.

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SergeyDruid
Interesting article. Now that I think of it, how comes that in all the (known)
universe we have ice or ice blocks (such as comets)? Where from does it
originates?

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jk4930
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welteislehre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welteislehre)

;)

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SergeyDruid
Fascinating theory regarding the ice, however, regarding the formation:

"According to the idea, the solar system had its origin in a gigantic star
into which a smaller, dead, waterlogged star fell. This impact caused a huge
explosion which flung fragments of the smaller star out into interstellar
space where the water condensed and froze into giant blocks of ice. A ring of
such blocks formed, which we now call the Milky Way, as well as a number of
solar systems among which was our own, but with many more planets than
currently exist."

maybe too far fetched? If it was like that we would have already spotted
similar galactic formations outside of the Milky Way

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andrewflnr
Well obviously if we had, their discovery would have been suppressed by
"reactionary astronomers". ;)

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EddyTaylor
It is hard to believe but it seems to be true. Also, it ignites another
discussion; Are we alone or do we have some company in this universe.

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kijin
This is not surprising at all. What would the alternative be? The
protoplantary disk that became the Solar System contained free hydrogen and
free oxygen but no compound thereof? That's sounds unlikely.

Water forms naturally given enough hydrogen and oxygen at a wide range of
temperatures. Since hydrogen is everywhere, and since main-sequence stars
produce tons of oxygen via fusion, there's probably a lot of water floating
around in the universe. When a nebula collapses into a protoplanetary disk,
the increased density makes it even more likely that gas molecules will meet
one another and form compounds.

~~~
nilkn
Water is indeed pervasive throughout the universe. Here's a pretty interesting
and relevant article from NASA:

[http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe2011072...](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html)

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eapen
I came to say that this changes everything since I thought the light came
first. Still seemed relevant. (not trolling)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_there_be_light)

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be
light: and there was light. And God saw the light, and it was good; and God
divided the light from the darkness.

~~~
Cleanaxe
Light was created on the first day, but the Sun was created on the fourth. And
Genesis presents the Universe's primordial state as being just a watery mass,
so water existed before both.

Fun fact: Proverbs 8 identifies Wisdom as the first of God's works, hence the
Judeo-Christian tradition of identifying Wisdom with light.
[http://www.esvbible.org/Proverbs+8/](http://www.esvbible.org/Proverbs+8/)

The New Testament also identifies Jesus as both Wisdom and Light, despite
Wisdom being female in Proverbs.

~~~
sigzero
The last one, you are trying to find contradiction where there is none.

~~~
lotharbot
Among serious Christian circles it would be phrased as "learning that first
century Jewish culture was different from ours and didn't react the same to
certain concepts". They didn't see it as at all weird to identify Jesus with
wisdom -- not because they were idiots or missed a blatant contradiction, but
simply because they didn't have the same specific hangups we do. Likewise,
Jesus identifying as a "hen gathering her chicks" in Matthew 23 wasn't a
gender _faux-pas_.

~~~
coldtea
It's not a gender faux-pas now either in 99% of the world.

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kp666
water on earth came from meteors and some of these meteors could have been
older than sun

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IgorPartola
Here is a fun fact: only elements up to iron are produced as a result of
fission. The rest, including elements essential to human life, elements in
your body, are only produced through fusion. Fusion is known to only occur in
stars. You are stars.

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CapitalistCartr
Yes,except it's the other way round. Fusion in normal stars makes elements up
to iron. Only supernovae create the rest of the elements.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova_nucleosynthesis)

~~~
timdiggerm
It says that Lithium, Beryllium and Boron are made by cosmic rays.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray_spallation)

This is crazy.

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themodelplumber
As someone interested in science, I was really excited to read the headline
and see the HN discussion. As a Christian I was surprised and kind of creeped
out to see the "so much for the Bible" talk. I feel like a Japanese person
must feel when an American tries to get them to laugh at jokes. But I guess in
a way it's nice though that nobody ever brings up the sort of beyond-
Religion-101 topics that actually challenge my faith.

Edit: Why all the downvotes? I'm saying I'd prefer we let science be science,
without the didactic religion talk, pro or con.

~~~
jjsalamon
At the time of writing there is only 1 parent comment poking fun at the bible.
Let's not get too delicate here.

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themodelplumber
Only one parent comment sure, but it was the second comment on the page at the
time, and is currently the longest thread on the page. Nothing wrong with
calling it out.

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lotharbot
that "longest thread" includes some moderately enlightening comments which are
not at all anti-religion, but are challenging in a good way.

.

disclosure: I wrote some of them ;)

