Water 6 trillion miles away

[bindeweede]

Water has been found on a huge planet quite a long way away.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B29F1AA5-D126-4D0F-BC62-9958AB4987D1.htm

[bobdezon]

Its difficult to imagine that humans can find evidence of water on a planet trillions of miles away, yet cannot find missing persons or the other sock.

[vbloke]

I can see the signpost now...

"Last water for 6,000,000,000,000 miles"

mmm, thirsty now...

[bindeweede]

I can see the signpost now...

"Last water for 6,000,000,000,000 miles"

mmm, thirsty now...

If my calculator is right, at 3 miles an hour, for 18 hours a day, it would take just over 304 million years to walk it.???

Just the thought makes me reach for the Bells.

EDIT. Sorry, this is totally inaccurate, as I forgot to allow for February 29th.(s)

[John Jackson]

I'd have thought that anywhere in the universe where heavy elements are present that water would be abundant. It's only Hydrogen, which is everywhere, and Oxygen combined.

Is there any reason to suppose that water would be unlikely to be found where 2nd and 3rd generation stars are forming? ???

[bonavada]

june gave us an interesting episode of "the sky at night" which can be see here (real player needed to view):-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/spaceguide/skyatnight/proginfo.shtml

the show covers this very subject. planets are "popping up" everywhere it seems.
as (small/distant/dark object detection) techniques improve i think we can expect many more exciting discoveries as time progresses.

BV

[Mongrel]

<OT>Since this will inevitably come up Real Alternative (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm) will give you the Real player codec without the saggy bloatware that comes with it O0
</OT>

[bindeweede]

I'd have thought that anywhere in the universe where heavy elements are present that water would be abundant. It's only Hydrogen, which is everywhere, and Oxygen combined.

Is there any reason to suppose that water would be unlikely to be found where 2nd and 3rd generation stars are forming? ???

OK, I'm not a scientist, or clever, but...........silly question coming up................are the principles of physics, chemistry and biology Universal? Could there be a planet Godzillions of miles away where some form of life is based on hydrogen, carbon, and, say, chlorine, or nitrogen, or ammonia.????

Totally silly question, but there are many clever folks here whose opinions I would be very interested to read.

[Mongrel]

I may be corrected, but yes Bindweede. To say otherwise would be DNAcentric and perhaps teetering on one of the Creationist arguments - we're perfectly suited to live here because there's an abundance of carbon and water

Whilst Carbon bases are perhaps one of the most efficient ways to do things (it combines with tons of other stuff and still produces stable products) and good old H2O has similar properties (and is easily made here on Earth) it doesn't preclude using other elements as a basis for living organisms. Until we find other, recognisable, life it's one of those "probably not but we have a large error margin" answers

[Matt]

There was an interesting article a few weeks ago in New Scientist reagrding the front running candidtates for life in conditions outside of our goldilocks zone. For example liquid amonia instead of water, silicon instead of carbon.

Another part of the question which you may not have intended was whetehr the basic principles of physics are actually universal.

For example we have a universal gravitational constant. Is it rather presumptive to call it universal if we have only tested it in our own back yard. Quite simply we believe it's universal for lack of evidence otherwise.

[Cuddles]

The thing about carbon is that it's the only element that can form an essentially infinite variety of long-chain molecules. It's very unlikely that life could be based on anything else because there just isn't the phase space necessary for evolution. Silicon has some potential, but it can't form chains on its own, it has to alternate silicon and oxygen, and then the chains are much shorter than carbon ones and very unstable.

Water is actually much less important. Although it has some interesting properties and has a big deal made out of it, it probably isn't necessary for life. The only really important property for life is being a good solvent so many different reactions can take place in it, which many other compounds are. The other uses we have for water, such as respiration, only need it because we evolved in a water rich environment, there is no reason to suppose they would be possible with other compounds in other environments.

[wollery]

The basic principles of physics are mostly assumed to be Universal because if they aren't then most of science is up a gum tree.

Of course, we can test for some of them in far reaches of space. Gravity can be tested by looking at the relativistic effects it has, such as bending light. QM can be tested by looking for the signatures of events such as particle pair production. And similarly we can test for the nuclear forces and magnetism.

The only real question about gravity is whether or not it is constant in low acceleration regions. The MOND theory proposes that it isn't and does a fairly good job of reconciling galactic rotation curves without the need to invoke Dark Matter.

Mongrel, no correction, that was a very well worded assessment.