Is the Universe Full of Water?

Originally posted by Blue Shift
From what I understand, Earth got most of its water from asteroids and other rocky materials floating around at the beginning of the solar system. If you heat rocky meteorites, they give off all kinds of water vapor.

As for the rest of the universe, I suppose there's a decent amount of water here and there. There's a lot of everything in the universe, seeing as how big it is. More than anything, though, the universe is filled with a whole lot of nothing. If it was filled with more stuff, you wouldn't be able to see many stars.

So I guess compared to vast reaches of space where there basically isn't anything, there isn't really that much water after all. Add to that all the stars and planets that don't have any water at all, and you have almost no water, period, really.

To be honest. The water H2O that is on earth came from earth it self do to a cooling process that took place over a long period of time. Our H2O never came from a meteor or meteors.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I have sources to backup my claims that oxygen and/or water haven't been around since the beginning, as you claim physicists said:

No, now you're misquoting me to make your point. I never said water has been around "since the beginning"... Those are your words.

I said "a few hundred million years" after the Big Bang. That's not "the beginning"... While Hydrogen probably existed from the beginning, Oxygen didn't exist until after the birth of the original "stars," which fused the primordial elements into heavier elements.

As I said, you're only hearing what you want to hear.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
I have sources to backup my claims that oxygen and/or water haven't been around since the beginning, as you claim physicists said:

No, now you're misquoting me to make your point. I never said water has been around "since the beginning"... Those are your words.

I said "a few hundred million years" after the Big Bang. That's not "the beginning"... While Hydrogen probably existed from the beginning, Oxygen didn't exist until after the birth of the original "stars," which fused the primordial elements into heavier elements.

As I said, you're only hearing what you want to hear.

— Doc Velocity

Well let me quote you exactly:

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Physicists tell us that all water molecules that exist today in the Universe existed in the earliest days of the Universe, basically just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, which I find quite odd, indeed.

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Well, that's always been my contention, as well, that water assembly and disassembly is an ongoing, never-ending cycle. However, over the decades, on more than one of the "edutainment" networks, I've heard "scientists" — including Dr. Carl Sagan — rather matter-of-factly assert that there is as much water in the Universe now as there has ever been, and that the quantity of it is an unchanging constant.

You said you heard the quantity of water or elemental oxygen is an unchanging constant, but you also say it was formed in stellar processes?

Are you saying that the stellar processes only formed oxygen or water for a few hundred million years and then stopped forming it? And if so why? And again what are your sources? You say Sagan but I couldn't find where he said it was constant. Can you be more specific?

[edit on 13-5-2010 by Arbitrageur]

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
Are you saying that the stellar processes only formed oxygen or water for a few hundred million years and then stopped forming it? And if so why?

I never said that. Again, you're attempting to put words in my mouth that I've not uttered. I said that others have asserted that the Universe contains as much water now as it ever contained — now, if they were implying the components of water are the same as water itself, they need to make themselves more clear.

In my view, water did not exist "in the beginning," before the birth of the original proto-stars, it couldn't have existed, as Oxygen didn't yet exist.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur
And again what are your sources? You say Sagan but I couldn't find where he said it was constant. Can you be more specific?

When I drag out my copy of Cosmos or Broca's Brain, and locate such allusions, I'll let you know.

— Doc Velocity

reply to post by Doc Velocity

The hydrogen has been around since the beginning. The oxygen hasn't. So yes one component of water has been around, the other hasn't and is still forming.

I'm not sure why you think there might be an allusion in Broca's brain to water in the early universe, but post it if you find it. The Google book search for "water" in that book is incomplete:

books.google.com...

But the Google book search for "water" in Cosmos looks like it might be complete, it even finds the word on pages not included in the preview:

books.google.com...=onepage&q=water&f=false

I typed "water" in the "search this book" box and got lots of results from Cosmos. I looked through all those and couldn't find the claim you referenced, or anything close. However I'm not 100% sure the search is complete, or I may have missed it, so again, please post it if you find it.

Yes I know you've said others made those claims but since you've provided no evidence for that I'm not sure who else to attribute those claims to. I looked up both the Sagan sources you referenced and can't find it and frankly, Sagan was too well informed to say things like

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Physicists tell us that all water molecules that exist today in the Universe existed in the earliest days of the Universe, basically just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, which I find quite odd, indeed.

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Well, that's always been my contention, as well, that water assembly and disassembly is an ongoing, never-ending cycle. However, over the decades, on more than one of the "edutainment" networks, I've heard "scientists" — including Dr. Carl Sagan — rather matter-of-factly assert that there is as much water in the Universe now as there has ever been, and that the quantity of it is an unchanging constant.

I think he knew the metallicity of the universe was increasing through stellar processes, and that the formation of oxygen is an ongoing process as part of that metallicity increase, so any allusion to a constant amount of oxygen or water coming from Sagan just wouldn't make sense. Maybe he said the hydrogen is ancient, and that's true, but that's only one component of water, you need oxygen too, and the amount of oxygen, and therefore the amount of water, has been increasing and isn't constant, and I think Sagan knew that.

I think your assumption is logical that water bonds can form or break under certain circumstances, but the key problem with anyone saying that the amount of water has been constant, is that the amount of oxygen hasn't been constant.

[edit on 13-5-2010 by Arbitrageur]

reply to post by Crossfate


Yea as phage pointed out, Water is, like, the 3rd most common thing we find out there. first being hydrogen, 2nd being helium,

Crossfate I have wondered that very thing for sometime now too!

The theory that I have is that the earth is like a stationary ball in a bathtub of water and just like other objects in that water would move around the ball according to the push and pull of the currents then in like manner the celestial objects move around the earth.

Very good post S/F. Also check out this verse:

Psalm 74:13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters."

Alot of teachers think this refers to Moses parting the Sea. I think it's a prophetic future event refering to the removal of the saint's from the Earth. I believe that probably the dragons here are the demons that were poured into the air. Because later David call the ocean dwellers sea monsters.

And this verse came way before Moses time. Also it makes mention of the "proud" possibly Lucifer.

Job 26:12 He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud."


For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
Physicists tell us that all water molecules that exist today in the Universe existed in the earliest days of the Universe, basically just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, which I find quite odd, indeed.

Essentially, they're telling us that the bonding of hydrogen and oxygen atoms into water molecules happened just once, such that water is among the oldest compounds in the Universe. The half-gallon or so of water that you drink today (and that you will piss away later) has existed for about 13 billion years, and it will still exist 13 billion years from now.

Which I don't buy for a moment.

I realize you are doubting what you may have read about all water in the universe being created only once -- and you should, because that's incorrect. Water (H20) is being created right now on Earth, all the time, everyday. Every time hydrogen is burned (i.e., when it is "oxidized"), water is created. So, the by-product of burning hydrogen is water.

When the space shuttle goes up (one is planned to launch today), hydrogen fuel in burned by the Shuttle's main engines, and water is created in the process. Also, in a hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen is used as the fuel, and water is created as the "exhaust".

Heck, even when a gasoline-powered engine burns, the reaction from burning the hydrocarbon fuel creates water in the exhaust (among other nasty compounds). The water wasn't there to begin with, but the hydrogen molecules in the gasoline bonds with oxygen molecules when it is burned, thus creating H20.

I do think that perhaps all of the hydrogen in the universe was only created once in the minutes following the Big Bang. I know scientists think this is true for deuterium (an ion of hydrogen), but I'm not sure about the more common form of hydrogen.



[edit on 5/14/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

I started a thread about 2 years ago called "Should we continued to be amazed about finding water in our solar system??" that touched on this. Of course, as Phage rightfully pointed here and in my thread from 2 years ago, the term "water" often connotes the liquid form of H2O, but I am talking about H2O in general (water ice and water vapor as well as liquid water).

But the point I was trying to make was that many scientists just 10 or 20 years ago seemed "amazed" when they found H2O existing in the far reaches of the solar system. Even 5 years ago, it seems that most people were "amazed" when they hear news stories about signs of H2O being found on other bodies in the solar system, and even outside the solar system.

At what point will we all (myself included) stop being surprised that H2O exists elsewhere and realize that it just may be ubiquitous to our solar system, this part of our galaxy, and perhaps throughout the universe in general?

Here's that past thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 5/14/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]