That glass of water you just drank? It was OLDER than the SUN

"making it about one million years older than the solar system"

One *million* years? That's a cosmic microsecond, a mere rounding error.

And simulating one million years of chemical soup in a computer program is probably about as accurate as predicting the weather in one hundred years' time. Oh wait...

It can be purified...

...by brewing. For best effect, that should be carried out in Masham... ;-)

Worse still; it has all been drunk and whizzed out by at least one dinosaur.

He's right, you know.

At least everyone should also have a homoeopathic immunity to any alien borne illnesses which may arrive here one day.

Re: Panic!

Only tell them it's hydrogen dioxide. That will really merit a blasting headline.

Re: Panic!

We are literally awash with an alien substance. Tell the Daily Mail.

Do the Mail's readers wash?

(Awaiting downvotes from the three DM readers here...)

Re: Stunningly obvious 'discovery' - H2 verses H2O

Think that molecular hydrogen is the most likely commonest molecule in the universe, bloody massive clouds of it floating around out there, more than has been incorporated in the stars or planets we can see.

Every proton, neutron and most electrons in the solar system are damned near as old as time itself!

Uppies anyway.

Re: Define 'local'

"It is not clear to me about whether or not the hydrogen and oxygen used to make the water was from outlying molecules of the planetary forming disc or if they drifted in from unrelated stellar space.

If local then the water of life would still vary from system to system. If not local the clouds should be visible in interstellar space rather than just around forming systems"."

I am assuming you mean just Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules - otherwise you would think Oort type objects. I think it is reasonable to think that material is merging from outside our system, but I would wonder if it just collects in the outer reaches until it falls inward with one of the objects. I was looking at this chart for perspective:

http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2004/10/4_dc08febfcab194aed2ada6677c525dc62.jpg

At the same time though, in the early formation of the sun and the solar system we were still in the cloud where other stars were born. You could look at it as if gas was arriving from outside the system, or we were all part of the same system. You could surmise that any gases outside our system falling in are really from the same original system. (I know The Reg had this article but I was having trouble finding it - fell free to sub the link)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/09/solar-system-origins-dust-cloud_n_5662441.html

Re: Define 'local'

If you accept current Cosmology and stellar theory, there is some sense in which the origin of the water is irrelevant. After the BB you have hydrogen which gets converted into other chemicals in Type II starts. The Type II stars die and seed the surrounding area with the chemicals they generated. Since the fusion reactions depend on physics for their changeover points, the percentages of other elements produced by a given Type II star will be constant for all practical purposes. Which means you'll wind up with roughly the same percentages of hydrogen and oxygen in the regions forming Type I stars regardless.

And your point? Beside maybe trying to convince some that your religion is the One True Religion based on one quote? Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn occasionally.

""Indeed, you are resurrected after death," those who disbelieve will surely say, "This is not but obvious magic.""

And yeay, it was but a universal fact that books of religous mumbo jumbo, unto the last one, were ever presented in the style of King James, for ever and ever, that the gullible shall believe the mystic nonsense and be in awe.

"And it is He (God) "

God is Helium? Someone call John Carter!

God is merely a molecule of the imagination.

Water is real. Go figure.

The six days abrahamic creation thing...

...Always cracks me up.

It's the sort of tale you'd invent if you were a bloke who wanted to frighten the people around you into doing whatever you tell them, and the people around you were largely peasants who couldn't read or write and lacked the education that today shows up these stories for the nonsense they always were.

What is even funnier is that you can still get a university 'degree' in this mumbo jumbo.

Koran

Mohammed copied a lot of it from the Jewish and Christian books as he wanted them to join his new religion. He was quite puzzled that only taxes and/or swords convinced them to convert. The polytheistic people at the time though often converted.

He also only visited Jerusalem in a dream. It's not a reliable source for comment about science. For metaphysical or philosophical explanations the original texts may be clearer.

Re: Oxygen not new - some is, but not a lot yet!

There is oxygen being produced in the various CNO (carbon nitrogen oxygen) reaction cycles in the sun but most gets consumed soon after formation (it is a cycle).

There is also the triple-alpha process producing carbon which can be hit by another alpha particle to produce stable oxygen 16. Again not a lot as yet but this does not get re-consumed and is an end product but won't be released until Sol's end days.