Large Hardon Collider

[Max™]

Kinda obvious, I'd think.

The moon is a chunk of material knocked off the earth... I'd expect it to have similar amounts of water locked up in it's rocks, especially since plate tectonics didn't occur (which is why there's so much water on the Earths surface) to bring it up to the surface to be blasted away by the sun.

[Kaylia]

I was going to post this when I got home! A remarkable find, further proof that things we thought were exclusive and special to us is more common then previously thought.

Water being common in the universe isn't surprising. It's always good to confirm our theories, and we might be able to understand planet formation a little more, but it doesnt come out as something remarkable to me.


I'm not sure if there is practical use to this, since quantity are very small (and filtering water for future use would cause more problems than bringing it from earth most likely)

The moon is a chunk of material knocked off the earth... I'd expect it to have similar amounts of water locked up in it's rocks, especially since plate tectonics didn't occur (which is why there's so much water on the Earths surface) to bring it up to the surface to be blasted away by the sun.

I would expect a certain quantity, but being much lighter than the rest, I assume that most of the water would have been found on the surface and evaporated.


[edit]
Especially early during its formation, when it was rotating much faster

[Max™]

There is water locked up in solid rock, tectonics kicks in when the rocks get heated, release the water, which is then floated up out of the gravity well somewhat due to denser material pushing down past it. As it gets trapped it exerts pressures.

Those pressures add up over millions of years, plates shift, continents move around.

There should be a huge amount of water locked up in the deep moon rocks, it never got free from the earth material in the first place.

The rotation has little to do with it, it's more about the mass reaching a point where significant amounts of internal heat can be trapped.

[Kaylia]

I dont think the initial water quantity was large. If the moon can't keep gaseous water on the surface, why a large quantity would have been attracted (I assume temperature were freaking hot in the first instant).

Assuming the moon was liquid in its first instant, I do think the rotation would get the water out faster. How much, I dont know. I don't have the tools to get a clear idea of what happened. I'm just going with my impression, which is a pretty bad way to do sciences.

Beside, if there was large quantity of water, I think the resonance test they made a few years ago would have noticed something...unless they are really small pocket.

[Qalbert]

wait so the moon isn't made of cheese?

[Max™]

I'm talking literally about rocks which would seem dry in your hand, yet if you baked them in an oven with a trap above it, you'd collect steam.

Metasomatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia as an example.

I mean literally that the rocks in the Earth's crust/mantle contain water in some amount, or did at the time of it's formation, and almost all the water on the surface was extracted by tectonic activity.

The moon is not heavy enough to have such processes, by logical deduction it must contain roughly the same amount of water as the crust/upper mantle material of the Earth does, as it was gouged out of it by a huge impact, yet never had a chance to separate the water from the minerals.

[Kaylia]

I'm talking literally about rocks which would seem dry in your hand, yet if you baked them in an oven with a trap above it, you'd collect steam.

Metasomatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia as an example.

I mean literally that the rocks in the Earth's crust/mantle contain water in some amount, or did at the time of it's formation, and almost all the water on the surface was extracted by tectonic activity.

The moon is not heavy enough to have such processes, by logical deduction it must contain roughly the same amount of water as the crust/upper mantle material of the Earth does, as it was gouged out of it by a huge impact, yet never had a chance to separate the water from the minerals.

What if you baked them in an oven, that didnt have a trap above you, but space.


Moon isnt heavy to have what process? Differentiation (or w/e is the english equivalent?). How heavy would it need to be? Or you're just assuming it's not heavy enough? Do you have any study in mind, or maths involved.


If you're simply saying there is trace of water on the moon...then I agree. I have a problem with large quantity of water, or at least, I have a problem with statement that say it's obvious there is large quantity of water.

[Max™]

Plate tectonics requires a cloud of material to condense in such a manner that it locks up much of the energy of the collapse as heat, it requires rocky material, and it requires water.

The moon was a cloud of debris originally, at one point the Earth most likely had a spectacular ring, that ring had some chunks which were larger than the rest, they swept the rest up, and the moon is the result of this process.

We know plate tectonics requires a significant amount of internal pressure and heat, and we know that smaller bodies cool faster.

Mars is not large enough to have sustained tectonics for long, though there are signs that it may have had limited plate shifting activity.

The Moon is much smaller, but again, it is made of the same material as the Earth.

If you went and grabbed a rock in your backyard and baked it, you'd get some amount of water most likely.

Not a large amount per rock, but a pile of them the size of North America would have at least a large sea of water locked up in their structure.


If the material was not able to generate significant internal heating due to the pressures caused by gravitational collapse, and it was not able to maintain what little heat it generated as it coalesced originally, it would cool rapidly.

The surface is baked, but if you dig down a few tens of meters, I'm certain you'd find relatively virginal material down there.

In that material, I'm confident you will find water in roughly the same quantities as we find in rocks from deep within the Earth's crust.

[Mizango]

Water being common in the universe isn't surprising. It's always good to confirm our theories, and we might be able to understand planet formation a little more, but it doesnt come out as something remarkable to me.

Yeah I don't think it shocks any of us that know and love space as much as we do. I think anything we can do to open peoples minds, get funding for space projects instead of for war and welfare and to answer more and more questions about the cosmos is a plus.

I have no doubt whatsoever that there is some exo-planet out there somewhere that resides in some far off habitable zone that does indeed have water and some form of life. Can I point to an obvious system and tell you what is there? No, but I'm sure that one exists somewhere out there. It's trivial to those of us that love this but to the general populous and for the sake of stirring interests in all of our future endeavors I am stoked.

People would be amazed if they only opened they eyes and actually looked around.

I'm not sure if there is practical use to this, since quantity are very small (and filtering water for future use would cause more problems than bringing it from earth most likely)

Yeah agreed. Wasn't it like a quart of water per metric ton of soil or something along those lines? Still early and trying to wake up =/

I mean it wouldn't be enough to sustain anything but perhaps it's one of those practical "every little bit helps" thing. We could hypothetically harvest lunar soil to run our coffee pots and alarm clocks!

[Woozie]

The most surprising liquid in space to me was alcohol. I saw something on the history channel about their being large quantities of alcohol (the kind we drink) in space. If we were to tell this to the general public, I'm sure we'd easily get more funds for more space missions (and more astronauts).

[Qalbert]

The most surprising liquid in space to me was alcohol. I saw something on the history channel about their being large quantities of alcohol (the kind we drink) in space. If we were to tell this to the general public, I'm sure we'd easily get more funds for more space missions (and more redneck astronauts).

ftfy

[Khamsin]

The most surprising liquid in space to me was alcohol. I saw something on the history channel about their being large quantities of alcohol (the kind we drink) in space. If we were to tell this to the general public, I'm sure we'd easily get more funds for more space missions (and more astronauts).

The kind we drink? So, is it corn, sugarcane, potato, rice, wheat, barley, peach, apricot, or grape based? Because we don't drink ethanol, we drink whiskey, rum, vodka, sake, beer, schnapps, and wine.

[Max™]

We drink ethanol.

Alchohol is a general term for those types of chemical products.


Here, let's run a wiki search and see what comes up: Alcohol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the generic chemistry term. For the kind of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, see Ethanol. For beverages containing alcohol, see Alcoholic beverage. For other uses, see Alcohol (disambiguation).

[Kaylia]

In that material, I'm confident you will find water in roughly the same quantities as we find in rocks from deep within the Earth's crust.

The most recent models explain its creation with a huge planetoid that hit the Earth and sent all the material flying in the air. Matter do cool fast in space far from the sun, but when there is a large quantity of hot molten rock blased by strong particles (since we are pretty close from the sun), there is a good chance it will dry out. The Moon's gravity can't hold gaseous water, so for your theory to be accurate, it would need to be formed from weak collision between icy material.

Also, I really don't get your tectonics argument. The Moon doesnt have any, so why does it matter.


Where did you get the idea for your model anyway? Is it something you thought up, or it's based on serious study (because quite frankly, everything model I heard about exclude large quantity of water on the moon. I'm not saying your idea is a bad one, but is it something you thought up from scratch, or something you heard somewhere else.

The most surprising liquid in space to me was alcohol. I saw something on the history channel about their being large quantities of alcohol (the kind we drink) in space. If we were to tell this to the general public, I'm sure we'd easily get more funds for more space missions (and more astronauts).

I'm starting to believe in God now


(but seriously, large quantity of organic matter in space is always interesting. It increase the likeliness of finding other life form by a TON, since one of the prime ingredient can be found easily).

[Pirian]

Oh hey! We're talking about plate tectonics? Hah, I just referenced that and didn't even know this thread was still going strong. By the way, Max, you didn't answer my question earlier in the other thread

[Max™]

The most recent models explain its creation with a huge planetoid that hit the Earth and sent all the material flying in the air. Matter do cool fast in space far from the sun, but when there is a large quantity of hot molten rock blased by strong particles (since we are pretty close from the sun), there is a good chance it will dry out. The Moon's gravity can't hold gaseous water, so for your theory to be accurate, it would need to be formed from weak collision between icy material.

It isn't wet, it is hydrated minerals, the water is embedded in the spaces of the crystalline structure of the rocks, it takes significant and sustained heating to dry them out generall.

It would lose a lot of the water contained in the rocks, yes, but even if it was only a milliliter drop per kilogram of moon rock, that's still a huge amount of water.

Also, I really don't get your tectonics argument. The Moon doesnt have any, so why does it matter.

Tectonics is what happens when bodies are massive enough to generate heat from pressure alone, and water is baked out. You get my argument if you see that the moon does not have any tectonic activity.

It was not massive enough to bake out the water from it's rocks, to set in motion plate activity, to bake out more water, etc. So where should the water be?

Where did you get the idea for your model anyway? Is it something you thought up, or it's based on serious study (because quite frankly, everything model I heard about exclude large quantity of water on the moon. I'm not saying your idea is a bad one, but is it something you thought up from scratch, or something you heard somewhere else.

I've heard the idea mentioned in passing, so I modeled a the formation of the solar system from a cloud of material with the proportions of various materials that we know it had. I included a proto-planet > Earth collision in my head and ran it over a fast forward of a couple billion years to the present day.

The collision was another body similar in scale to mars in an eccentric planetary orbit, it would have came in and slapped the Earth from the side, otherwise the collision would have been unlikely to merely knock a large chunk of material into Earth orbit. It would have cracked the Earth into smaller pieces, rather than leaving a single large hunk and a cloud of debris.

There would have been a significant amount of water loss from the impact heat, but there would have been a huge amount of rock tossed into space which was not molten due to the impact, and that rock would have lost surface layer moisture, but solar baking only goes so deep considering how fast these bodies would cool.

Run it forwards, if you don't have the collision occur in a slapping sideways impact, you get a cloud of debris, if you do have it hit that way, you get a significant amount of impact energy transferred into the orbits of the particles, and a fascinatingly precise spray of material into a stable orbit.

This would produce a wide narrow ring as the smaller pieces evaporated out of the local Earth orbit, or fell back in, leaving a goldilocks zone where the lunar material gathered.

Run it forwards more and you get the material gathered up by moonlets until eventually there is only the single large body we observe today, tidally locked, and rotating much closer than it is currently, but trending outwards bit by bit.


There is no reason why those rocks would have been significantly heated after the initial impact and the solar baking, the largest pieces, anything much over a few feet across, should contain hydrated deposits.

It increase the likeliness of finding other life form by a TON, since one of the prime ingredient can be found easily).

We already found life here, it must be everywhere, or we're in a uniquely privileged location in the Universe. Copernicus ftw.


I didn't see your question, Pir.

[Kaylia]

It isn't wet, it is hydrated minerals, the water is embedded in the spaces of the crystalline structure of the rocks, it takes significant and sustained heating to dry them out generall.

It would lose a lot of the water contained in the rocks, yes, but even if it was only a milliliter drop per kilogram of moon rock, that's still a huge amount of water.

Liquid rock contain water? When a proto planet crash on a planet, it's not rock that is tossed in the atmosphere, it's melted matter. This "belt" that that was created was most likely dry.

Tectonics is what happens when bodies are massive enough to generate heat from pressure alone, and water is baked out. You get my argument if you see that the moon does not have any tectonic activity.

It was not massive enough to bake out the water from it's rocks, to set in motion plate activity, to bake out more water, etc. So where should the water be?

You could simply mention the lack of active core on the Moon. No need to explain it indirectly using tectonics.

Strong pressure create fission within the core, and this fission create heat. That's all there is to it.

We already found life here, it must be everywhere, or we're in a uniquely privileged location in the Universe. Copernicus ftw.

Until we manage to create an artificial life form, I'm not going to talk about probability ;/

[Max™]

Liquid rock contain water? When a proto planet crash on a planet, it's not rock that is tossed in the atmosphere, it's melted matter. This "belt" that that was created was most likely dry.

Again, it isn't that clean, if it was a head on impact it would have ejected far more material and the heat would have been far greater.

We can tell from simulations which have since been ran that the impact must have been from a fairly shallow angle, and it would have scooped a significant amount of material out.


Yes, molten magma does contain water in it still, if it is not able to percolate out before it cools, this is what happens in the mantle of the Earth, plates get subducted, the rocks melt, the water in the rocks gets baked out and floats upwards, pressure, etc.

You could simply mention the lack of active core on the Moon. No need to explain it indirectly using tectonics.

Tectonics is directly related to this, it is why there is liquid water on the surface of the Earth, the fact that tectonic activity ended on Mars long ago is why there is not much water on the surface of Mars.

This is all connected.

Strong pressure create fission within the core, and this fission create heat. That's all there is to it.

Uh, Nuclear fission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While the radioactive materials which sunk to the bottom of the gravity well are likely a significant factor in the remarkable heat at the Earths core, it is not the heat which caused the material to become fissile, it is the other way around in part.

Pressure is another factor.

If the Earth was heavy enough to begin nuclear fission at it's core, we'd be screwed, plus you need a lot more than just pressure to cause that form of nuclear decay.

Until we manage to create an artificial life form, I'm not going to talk about probability ;/

Eh, it's a silly argument, obviously we are here. The scale of the Universe is too vast to make a ridiculous assumption that in all of that ridiculously huge body of spacetime, we are the ONE tiny little point where life popped up.

Life MUST be endemic to the Universe, it is a byproduct of fertile stellar formation, and the physical forces having the relationships they do.

If you ran the history of this Universe from it's initial state an infinite number of times, you would ALWAYS find life in it. It is a foregone conclusion.

[Kaylia]

Again, it isn't that clean, if it was a head on impact it would have ejected far more material and the heat would have been far greater.

We can tell from simulations which have since been ran that the impact must have been from a fairly shallow angle, and it would have scooped a significant amount of material out.

Yes, molten magma does contain water in it still, if it is not able to percolate out before it cools, this is what happens in the mantle of the Earth, plates get subducted, the rocks melt, the water in the rocks gets baked out and floats upwards, pressure, etc.

Considering energy level involved in that kind of event, I would say that yes, it did.

The quantity of water left in the plasma would be insignificant. Keep in mind I never said there was no water, I'm just arguing with the "we would find water in the same proportion" part.

Tectonics is directly related to this, it is why there is liquid water on the surface of the Earth, the fact that tectonic activity ended on Mars long ago is why there is not much water on the surface of Mars.

This is all connected.

There is liquid on the surface because there is an atmosphere that can keep it liquid, and there is rock under it because they are heavier than water. Tectonic or not, water would be on the surface or close.


Geothermal gradient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Earth's internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion (about 20%) and heat produced through radioactive decay (80%).


You say they are connected...sure, but not using the direct relation is retarded. Tectonic are the result of the core dynamics, just like heat is the result of the core's fission. Tectonic and Heat have no direct relation however. You could replace "tectonic" with "magnetic field" and hold the same argument, since magnetic field also come from the core..

Uh, Nuclear fission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While the radioactive materials which sunk to the bottom of the gravity well are likely a significant factor in the remarkable heat at the Earths core, it is not the heat which caused the material to become fissile, it is the other way around in part.
Pressure is another factor.


If the Earth was heavy enough to begin nuclear fission at it's core, we'd be screwed, plus you need a lot more than just pressure to cause that form of nuclear decay.

I never said it was heat that caused fission...I said it was the pressure that cause fission, and fission make heats.

Eh, it's a silly argument, obviously we are here. The scale of the Universe is too vast to make a ridiculous assumption that in all of that ridiculously huge body of spacetime, we are the ONE tiny little point where life popped up.

"We already found life here, it must be everywhere, or we're in a uniquely privileged location in the Universe. ."

Where is the in between? I replied to your post because the way it was worded, it's either super common or super rare.

I'm certain there is life somewhere else in the universe. However, is it one per galaxy, 10 000 per galaxy, or something...I do not know.

[Max™]

There is no inbetween, that is arbitrary.

If it is not prohibited, then it will be prolific. This is how the Universe works.


You're still missing what I'm saying about the water.

[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals]
[Rocky crystals][Water molecule][Rocky crystals][Rocky Crystals]
[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Water molecule][Rocky Crystals]
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[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Water molecule][Rocky crystals]
[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals]
[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals]
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[Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals][Rocky crystals]

I mean literally INSIDE the rock, in the spaces between the molecules of the rocks, are spots where water tends to slide in and make itself at home.