Well, till then...
Posted on 07/22/2011 8:44:00 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe — a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.
The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a quasar located 12 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said.
"Because the light we are seeing left this quasar more than 12 billion years ago, we are seeing water that was present only some 1.6 billion years after the beginning of the universe," said study co-author Alberto Bolatto, of the University of Maryland, in a statement. "This discovery pushes the detection of water one billion years closer to the Big Bang than any previous find."
Quasars are the most luminous, most powerful and most energetic objects in the universe. They are powered by enormous black holes that suck in surrounding gas and dust and spew out huge amounts of energy.
...
The astronomers used two different telescopes, one in Hawaii and one in California, to detect and confirm the water vapor surrounding the quasar.
Scientists think water vapor was present even in the early universe. So finding this old cloud of the stuff doesn't come as a shock.
"It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times," said study lead author Matt Bradford of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
However, the sheer size of the vapor cloud may surprise some scientists. APM 08279+5255 contains 4,000 times more water vapor than our own Milky Way galaxy, researchers said. That may be because much of the Milky Way's water is locked up in ice rather than vapor.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Brilliant reply; brilliant tag line. I shall be following you.
(1)Nebula is an ambiguous term referring to newly discovered objects which we don't understand.
(2) There is no reason there cannot be nebula full with alcohol. The Milky Way has a chocolate center. So say scientists who have yet to explain how they can find chocolate in a black hole.
"...and the floodgates of the heavens were opened."
I'll do you one better. In Genesis 1:2, we know that the earth was formless and void and covered in water. On the fourth day, God created the heavenly objects. The take away from this is that the Earth is the oldest thing in the Universe (by only four days) so the oldest water in the Universe is what I'm drinking right now.
I don't have the verse in front of me but yes I believe that is correct ;)
And of course it is inevitable that we will find a Helen Thomas planet someday. Simple probability says there must be one out there. If something as complex as life can exist somewhere else in the cosmos, then it is a given that a planet shaped like Helen Thomas's head is out there. And Alfred E. Newman's. And the entire cast of Gilligan's Island for that matter.
Well, till then...
Blushing....why thank you!
Google “Vacation Gal” in case you missed it.
;-)
There is no way to detect water from that distance. These astronomers are all wet.
Thanks for posting
LOL - “artists concept” - this is what passes for “science” amongst the lefties, public schools and duhscovery channel.
Michael Moore, your bath is ready...
12 billion years old. Should make any sapient being reading this pause. Probably wont.
If sapient beings aren’t interested in it why would anyone else be?
Might not have been totally clear... the paradigm question as to interpreting redshift for cosmic objects would cause a huge difference in the size of this water field you refer to. Given the newer interpretation the field would not be anywhere near as large.
;)
Just for the record, I’d rather live on Mary Anne than Ginger.
Ever heard of the Lyman Alpha Forest?
Lyman Alpha Forest
There are clouds of gas between distant quasars and the Earth that absorb ultraviolet light at the wavelength of the Lyman alpha line of hydrogen at a wavelength of 122 nm. Quasars also emit a strong Lyman alpha emission line. But the absorbing clouds all have smaller redshifts than the quasar since they have smaller distances. As a result the absorption lines are all on the blue or shorter wavelength side of the quasar emission line.
The figure below shows two actual quasar spectra. One is the nearby quasar 3C273 while the other is a large redshift object. This figure was adapted from Bill Keel's web site.
We know that there are a small number of very big clumps of hydrogen in the distant Universe: the galaxies. We also know that smaller galaxies, the dwarf galaxies, are very much more common. Most of the clouds in the Lyman alpha forest are much less massive than dwarf galaxies and these small clouds are much more numerous. We can only see these very low mass clouds by the absorption they produce in the strongest line of the most abundant element: Lyman alpha. Thus by studying the Lyman alpha forest we can learn about the density fluctuations in the Universe on the smallest observable scales.
Note that if Arp were correct and quasars had a redshift much larger than the redshift due to their distance, then there should be a gap on the blue side of the Lyman alpha emission line before the absorption lines began. Such gaps are not seen. So if Arp were correct the Lyman alpha forest would have to be an intrinsic property of the quasar, which would be a very unlikely situation. Distant galaxies are seen which also show the Lyman alpha forest, so we know that the intervening clouds do exist. For Arp to be correct the intrinsic absorption lines would have to act exactly like the intervening clouds would act under the standard hypothesis that the quasar redshift is entirely cosmological.
The universal toilet has been flushed. The question is: are we headed into the septic tank, or are we already there?
Yeah; it's a bunch of BS, and basically amounts to people who ought to know better trying to defend a dead theory by grasping at straws.
This is the thing which killed the "Lyman Alpha Forest idea:
NGC7603
I always enjoy these posts.
Yes indeed! God is awesome! Thank you, Father, for creating this universe.
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