
Scientists Discover The Oldest, Largest Body Of Water In Space - jordanchan
http://www.fastcompany.com/1769468/scientists-discover-oldest-largest-body-water-existence-space
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gjm11
This article (like the discovery it reports) is from July 2011. The NASA press
release can be found here:
[http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe2011072...](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html)
and it contains all the actual information in the article.

(And: what a terrible article! On two occasions it simply says _the exact same
thing_ twice in succession in almost the same words. And it says this: "NASA’s
water discovery should be a reminder that if we have the sophistication to
discover galaxies full of water 12 billion light years away, we should be able
to save people just an ocean away from drought-induced starvation." ... which
makes as much sense as saying that if we have the sophistication to discover
enormous black holes at the centres of galaxies, we ought to be able to make
our own black holes in the laboratory, or that if we have the sophistication
to accelerate protons to 0.999999991c in the LHC, we ought to be able to make
cars go at at least 0.9c.)

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sageabilly
This would make an awesome premise for a sci-fi book. A plot along the lines
of "Humanity must stop This Bad Thing but to do so they need Lots of Water but
they have used up all the water so they have to Pull Together in Time of
Crisis in order to retrieve all the water while contending with the fact that
the water is around a black hole." Maybe throw in some serendipitously
discovered alien technology that makes it all possible.

I think that it would make for a truly epic space opera if written by the
right author.

~~~
blincoln
Ice Pirates?
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/)

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1971genocide
Can we predict based on what we see the current status of the "cloud of
water". Shouldn't it collapse into stars ?

Or does the blackhole consume the entire cloud of water !

So many questions.

Imagine if life existed within it. They must be wondering if life outside a
"cloud of water" is even possible ? A planet ?

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JoeAltmaier
I recall (from the last time this was posted) that its like a few molecules of
H2O per cubic meter. So more like a 'cloud of water vapor' or even 'a cloud of
water plasma'.

It was made by the expanding shock wave from a supernova, through a gas cloud
of mostly hydrogen. Lots got fused to oxygen, and then they combined. The
tremendous amount of water is because its a vast expanding volume of space.

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dmichulke
I'm not sure I would apply superlatives when talking about a possibly infinite
domain.

Then again, it's not that I could claim this is the most pretentious headline
produced by an intelligent human either.

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lighthawk
Meh... some alien civilization probably used it all on irrigation by now.

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jordanchan
Hydroponics using atmospheric humidity maybe?

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robodale
...but does the black hole have rights to that water? Answer: NO!

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JoeAltmaier
...four years ago. This has been discussed here before?

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MrBunny
so would it be safe to assume every planet/moon should have some amount of
water? In one form or another. Should it be less of a surprise?

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farresito
I bet Nestle has already bought it.

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DavidSJ
Maybe we could bring some to California.

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PhasmaFelis
It's amazing how many words he spends saying "this large body of water is
really quite large." I mean:

> _The official NASA news release describes the amount of water as "140
> trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans," which isn’t
> particularly helpful, except if you think about it like this._

> _That one cloud of newly discovered space water vapor could supply 140
> trillion planets that are just as wet as Earth is._

Oh, so _that 's_ what that means! Gosh!

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fridek
Replacing "140 trillion times the total water on Earth" with "enough to supply
an entire planet's worth of water for every person on earth, 20,000 times
over." wasn't a particularly good idea.

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x5n1
I like 140 trillion earths figure, that's pretty unimaginable. 20,000 not so
much.

