Astronomers Detect Water at Record Distance From Earth

The water vapor was found 11.5 billion light years from Earth, using the 100-meter Effelsberg radio telescope at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Leipzig, Germany.

A light year is the amount of time it takes for light to travel through space in a single year.

Astronomers say the water vapor is in the form of a disc, called a maser, orbiting a black hole.

If this is 100% accurate, it only adds strength to the non-believers that life exists elsewhere. Water flourishes throughout our Universe and I am so happy that Nations continue to contribute to space exploration. Without these types of instruments to conduct a variety of studies, I believe man-kind will fade away.

Link to article: voanews.com...

[edit on 17-12-2008 by Quazze]

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[edit on Thu Dec 18 2008 by Jbird]

Considering hydrogen is an abundant element in the cosmos, as is the element oxygen and carbon, its no surprise that there be water out there.

Cool...clear...water!


Cheers!!!!

Who is to say that life needs water. here could be other forms of life that exist but don't need it to survive.

It is known knowledge that water was to be found throughout the universe but interesting that they an see it form so far away.

Water, water, everywhere.

Really, just about everywhere we look we find the stuff. The problem is that it is usually solid or gaseous. The liquid kind, the kind that's useful, has been elusive. There's only one place we've run across it so far.

[edit on 12/17/2008 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage

The liquid kind, the kind that's useful, has been elusive. There's only one place we've run across it so far.

[edit on 12/17/2008 by Phage]

Perhaps two places? NASA thinks there may be liquid water on Mars today, at least beneath Mars' surface:

New Gully Deposit in a Crater in Terra Sirenum

These images show that a material flowed down through a gully channel, once between December 2001 and April 2005. After the flow stopped, it left behind evidence -- the light-toned deposit. The deposit is thin enough that its thickness cannot be measured in the camera's 1.5-meters-per-pixel images. However, it does exhibit a digitate termination, suggesting that the material flowed in a fluid-like manner down the approximately 25 degree slope before splaying out into multiple small lobes at the point where the crater wall meets the crater floor and the slope suddenly drops to near zero. This deposit, and a similar one in a crater in the Centauri Montes, together suggests that the materials involved were low-volume debris flows containing a mixture of sediment and a liquid that had the physical properties of liquid water. In this case, we propose that the water came from below the surface, emerged somewhere beneath the mantle covering the original crater wall, and then ran down through a previously existing gully channel. No new gully was formed, but an old one was re-activated.

www.nasa.gov...

reply to post by RFBurns


I'm curious, what has carbon got to do with water?

Cool that they have seen this though. Would be much more useful if they could find it a little closer to home though.

[edit on 17/12/08 by stumason]

Astronomers say the water vapor is in the form of a disc, called a maser, orbiting a black hole.

That's pretty interesting! I would like to know more about a maser, I'm looking at a few things but the types on wiki are really interesting, though I don't think they relate. This is a really neat find!

Not everything needs water to survive....

The only benefit to finding water is the chances of life are far greater.
And the added factor which says that man can spread out into the cosmos.

Though.... There are so many other variables to think about... Water is however a step in the right direction

reply to post by ziggystar60

While I do agree with you and NASA that this COULD have been a liquid flow, other scientists have demonstrated that the gully flows in those photos could be the result of a flow of DRY fine silt. Those photos are evidence of flowing water, but there are other plausible non-water explanations.

As for the OP and the idea that water is prevalent throughout our universe, I have always found it interesting how common it seems to be to find water (in any form) all throughout our solar system -- Mars, Saturn's atmosphere, Saturn's Moon, Jupiter's atmoshpere , Jupiter's moons, Venus' atmosphere, millions of comets, etc.

The prevalence of water throughout the solar system leads me to believe that the primordial disk of dust and gases that eventually became our solar system may have containded a lot of water vapor, similar to the vapor found 11.5 billion lightyears away.

Who knows? Perhaps that vapor was part of a dust cloud that eventually formed into its own solar system with liquid-water bearing planets...it had the past 11 billions years to do it.

Originally posted by Quazze

A light year is the amount of time it takes for light to travel through space in a single year.

WATER!!!! ..er.. or at least it WAS there....

um.. 11.5 billion years ago!!!!

I'm all for what this finding MEANS to us in the excitement it brings..

but you have to keep the time factor in mind as well.

remember.. we are reading data from 11.5 beeeeelllyun yrs ago.

not to mention.. that that's where that water vapor was 11.5 bil yrs ago... not where it is now. (could be much closer now.. or further)


just sayin...

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[edit on 19-12-2008 by prevenge]