Star Found Shooting Water "Bullets"

A star has been found that expels water into space. A study is being conducted that suggests that this may help "Irrigate" the universe.

Seven hundred and fifty light-years from Earth, a young, sunlike star has been found with jets that blast epic quantities of water into interstellar space, shooting out droplets that move faster than a speeding bullet.

The discovery suggests that protostars may be seeding the universe with water. These stellar embryos shoot jets of material from their north and south poles as their growth is fed by infalling dust that circles the bodies in vast disks.

Imagine what this means in regards to whether or not life exists elsewhere in the universe! Scientists have said for quite sometime that water is the building block for life, which is why they have spent billions searching for it on Mars and in other areas of our solar system.

A star is born: Swirling gas and dust fall inward, spurring polar jets, shown in blue in this illustration.



What if life on Earth came from these water droplets?

"If we picture these jets as giant hoses and the water droplets as bullets, the amount shooting out equals a hundred million times the water flowing through the Amazon River every second," said Lars Kristensen, a postdoctoral astronomer at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

"We are talking about velocities reaching 200,000 kilometers [124,000 miles] per hour, which is about 80 times faster than bullets flying out of a machine gun," said Kristensen, lead author of the new study detailing the discovery, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

At that speed, imagine how far out into the universe this water is dispensed. I think this is one of the most important discoveries in decades. I welcome anyone else's thoughts on this...


Link to the story

Holy beef!
That's some serious stuff!
Sooo much watrer into space where does it all go?
I wonder but we will never find where it does unless if we can travel infinite space.

Originally posted by foreshadower99
Holy beef!
That's some serious stuff!
Sooo much watrer into space where does it all go?
I wonder but we will never find where it does unless if we can travel infinite space.

But imagine what this actually means... this is just one star. If this one star does this, then there are an infinite number throughout the universe that also do it. All of that water has to end up somewhere, and imagine all of the planets that the water ends up on. That is an infinite number of habitable planets that could support life.

My only question is why doesn't the water evaporate due to the intense heat and friction that the star produces.

reply to post by OptimusSubprime


Amazing! Yet how does it maintain its molecular constitution as H2O in the vacuum of space? Would it not become ice as it cools away from the star's heat?

Space amazes me with all these complexities.

reply to post by OptimusSubprime


If this is true this is a slap in the face for us to wake up. Im sure at least one of the two is going to happen

Just imagine, a giant blobular water mass floating through interstellar space, with various elements inside that are organic, and with that nearby star shining on it, #, you could have organisms i bet.

Originally posted by xacto
reply to post by OptimusSubprime

 

If this is true this is a slap in the face for us to wake up. Im sure at least one of the two is going to happen lol.

edit on 15-6-2011 by xacto because: (no reason given)

I would expect to see a story like this on "Before It's News" or some other shady source, but this is Nat Geo, so that's why I'm very excited about this.

It would explain why water is so common in our solar system. Earth, moon, comets etc. Very exciting indeed.

Hi science fans.

? Does not water evaporates when it is not under the "vapor pressure"
of a big enough planet ?

I can not imagine **liquid** water in space. Should we ?
Ice, maybe; but liquid ?
And I bet the ice would sublimate. . .if near a star.

After a litte us2.ixquick.com...
www.astrobio.net...

Blue skies.

Originally posted by rcanem
It would explain why water is so common in our solar system. Earth, moon, comets etc. Very exciting indeed.

I was going to say this could explain where Comets come from. Being mostly water/ice. Previous to this I envisioned an Earth type planet exploding and ejecting a large amount of water from it's oceans out into space where it froze and set off to sail the cosmos.

This could explain their origins.

S & F

Originally posted by SLAYER69

Originally posted by rcanem
It would explain why water is so common in our solar system. Earth, moon, comets etc. Very exciting indeed.

I was going to say this could explain where Comets come from. Being mostly water/ice. Previous to this I envisioned an Earth like planet exploding and ejecting a large amount of water out into space where it froze and set off out into to space.

This could explain their origins.

S & F

Slayer,

I didn't think of it from that perspective. This could indeed explain where comets come from.

Imagine [for a second] if a jet of water the size of our Oceans hit the Earth at 200,000 Kilometers per Hour, it makes Wild Water Kingdom look like a rain drop.

The discovery suggests that protostars may be seeding the universe with water.

Wow this is pretty cool, wonder how long before we take that as aggressive behavior and attack said star

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Soon we will find that life itself was born in the death or birth of space anomalies. Sagan said we were all made of star dust and the more we find in space the more his words became true. The Universe was and is contunuassaly spreading life. The birth of the universe was supposibaly a massive explosion so incredible we are only now beginning to understand it. A super massive explosion of that magnitude could create anything, life and water are probably by products of that begging.

WOW, as more and more evidence emerges from our improved capabilities at looking deep into space, it becomes more and more obvious how little we know.

Note that it is a young star, I wonder if our own sun did the same when our solar system was much younger.

Originally posted by Revolution9
reply to post by OptimusSubprime

 

Amazing! Yet how does it maintain its molecular constitution as H2O in the vacuum of space? Would it not become ice as it cools away from the star's heat?

Space amazes me with all these complexities.

heh, our knowledge is only limited to what we know..im certain we only know .0000001% of not even the smallest fraction of everything that exists.

The water collected under electrostatic concentrations should form a water planet
like Saturn if Velikovsky was correct. Saturn exploded after seven days of a bright
light and caused the Deluge giving Noe time to record the time for history.
Thus we have more water now than at the earliest times of human history and the
rainbow appeared in the sky. Sure its all possible from the hand of God.

reply to post by SLAYER69

I was going to say this could explain where Comets come from. Being mostly water/ice.

The only problem with this is that almost no water in any form has been found on any comet that has been sampled to date. Comets being balls of ice appears to be pure speculation, it goes against all physical evidence so far.

To be fair though, we have not sampled very many comets thus far. However given the evidence gathered so far I think it is fair to say that comets are not dirty snowballs originating from the outer solar system.

Also keep in mind that water is water no matter what form it takes, solid-liquid or gas. Does anyone know if water can also be in a plasma form? I can only assume that water can be in the fourth state of matter, plasma, since I have not actually researched this myself.

[sarcasm]

No way!

god did all that! god created everything! he did it in 7 days! you are blaspheming blasphemer! water is from god and only god! hare dare you bring science into this!!!

[/sarcasm]

GREAT FIND!!!

Magnum

i read sumware that there is friction in space and if water is being shot out at that speed wud the be enuff of it to warm the water a lil and keep it in a liquid state??

im no expert and this is just a fout i had while reading

gr8 post aswell

Just had a thought:
Okay so BIG balls of dust and ice (comets) come in by stars creating huge tails of this dust and ice.
So all that water is spread across the solar system. Then they swing around and refreeze from water that they somehow acumulated on their way back out. Well maybe the water it collects have its origins from stars like these.

So these stars are like the water towers, and comets are like the sprinklers!