8 ms·

Giant body of water found in space, black hole claims it was just hydrating

69 points by bond 15y ago

Tichy 15y ago
What if it is an alien space ship that eats water, and it is coming for our planet next?
- misuse-permit 15y ago
  Then we would have at least 12 billion years until they got here.
redsymbol 15y ago
The press release from JPL, which is more thorough and detailed: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223
- shaggyfrog 15y ago
  Thank you for the link. I didn't see it anywhere in the story. In fact, the "NASA" link doesn't even leave the site -- it just goes to stories with that tag! Gruber had a story recently about attribution and credit that Engadget should read: http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/attribution_and_credit http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/attribution_and_credit
  - benologist 15y ago
    That's the Gruber way. Engadget prefers the AOL Way.
  - LoonyPandora 15y ago
    There is a link to the press release[1] the bottom left, next to where it says "source" - All Engadget posts have it in the same place. Seemingly it's not prominent enough, but the attribution is certainly there. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe2011072...
    - shaggyfrog 15y ago
      While true, it looks identical to the "NASA" link that precedes it that doesn't go externally, and so I skipped over it as I thought it was a duplicate. Besides, is it possible to make an attribution less visible?
- sigil 15y ago
  The JPL release also captions the picture with "This artist's concept illustrates..." Engadget didn't even bother. I really hate it when that gets left out.
ashwinraghav 15y ago
Its 12 billion light years away. Just keep in mind that this is what it looked like 12 billion years ago => it takes the light 12 billion years to reach the Earth. So the image as seen is really that old!
- nightpool 15y ago
  Actually, it's better to keep in mind that this picture is an artist's concept, not an actual photo :)
  - damoncali 15y ago
    Even the photos take artistic license. More often than not, the spectrum used is out of the visible range, and therefore has to be translated into a visible color scheme.
- goodside 15y ago
  That's not how it works. If we observe an object that's currently 12 billion lightyears away (i.e., its co-moving distance is 12 billion light years) the light we observe was emitted much less than 12 billion years ago. While light is in transit, both the distances ahead and behind it will increase due to Hubble expansion, so once you get up to cosmic scales like these the normal distance/velocity formulas don't apply. In general, if you point a flashlight into space and wait one year, the distance between you and the photons of light will be slightly higher than one lightyear. As you wait longer, this difference becomes less slight. When you get up to much larger scales (billions of lightyears) the Hubble expansion dominates the equations. In the most extreme cases, you get counterintuitive things popping up like distances that are so large they can't be traversed in any amount of time, even at light speed. Until you're using equations that make that seem natural, you shouldn't rely intuitive calculations from NASA press releases like this. Convincing science journalists of this fact is one of my minor life goals.
  - riobard 15y ago
    So what's the actual time it takes for light to travel 12 billion lightyears?
TeMPOraL 15y ago
This article has just brought back to life my child faith that space hides lots of amaing surprises for us. Thank you :).
sgt 15y ago
Could there be life inside of this water?
- loire280 15y ago
  According to the JPL article linked above, the water vapor is "300 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere." So it sounds like the cloud may as well be empty vacuum as far as life is concerned.
mapgrep 15y ago
What is the deal with the Engadget headline? Is it supposed to be a joke? The black hole claims it was just hydrating? I'm trying to accept the silly/weird premise in good humor, but I still don't "get" why the figurative humanish black hole is defensive about converting water vapor to energy. Maybe there's an obscure sci-fi or Seinfeld reference I'm missing.
- jackpirate 15y ago
  It's a http://fark.com http://fark.com style headline. No idea why engadget adopted it though.
  - mortenjorck 15y ago
    Engadget used to have witty headlines when they were covering something legitimately funny or ironic. The writing had a sort of fun, Brooklyn street-vibe to it that dated to when Peter Rojas ran the site. Unfortunately, this headline is a perfect example of where Engadget has gone in its AOL-Way, post-Topolsky era: trying to be funny by formula. It's mostly missing the charm of the style it is ostensibly following.

69 points by bond 15y ago

Tichy 15y ago

What if it is an alien space ship that eats water, and it is coming for our planet next?

misuse-permit 15y ago
Then we would have at least 12 billion years until they got here.

redsymbol 15y ago

The press release from JPL, which is more thorough and detailed: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223

shaggyfrog 15y ago
Thank you for the link. I didn't see it anywhere in the story. In fact, the "NASA" link doesn't even leave the site -- it just goes to stories with that tag! Gruber had a story recently about attribution and credit that Engadget should read: http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/attribution_and_credit http://daringfireball.net/2011/07/attribution_and_credit
- benologist 15y ago
  That's the Gruber way. Engadget prefers the AOL Way.
- LoonyPandora 15y ago
  There is a link to the press release[1] the bottom left, next to where it says "source" - All Engadget posts have it in the same place. Seemingly it's not prominent enough, but the attribution is certainly there. [1] http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe20110722.html http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/universe2011072...
  - shaggyfrog 15y ago
    While true, it looks identical to the "NASA" link that precedes it that doesn't go externally, and so I skipped over it as I thought it was a duplicate. Besides, is it possible to make an attribution less visible?
sigil 15y ago
The JPL release also captions the picture with "This artist's concept illustrates..." Engadget didn't even bother. I really hate it when that gets left out.

ashwinraghav 15y ago

Its 12 billion light years away. Just keep in mind that this is what it looked like 12 billion years ago => it takes the light 12 billion years to reach the Earth. So the image as seen is really that old!

nightpool 15y ago
Actually, it's better to keep in mind that this picture is an artist's concept, not an actual photo :)
- damoncali 15y ago
  Even the photos take artistic license. More often than not, the spectrum used is out of the visible range, and therefore has to be translated into a visible color scheme.
goodside 15y ago
That's not how it works. If we observe an object that's currently 12 billion lightyears away (i.e., its co-moving distance is 12 billion light years) the light we observe was emitted much less than 12 billion years ago. While light is in transit, both the distances ahead and behind it will increase due to Hubble expansion, so once you get up to cosmic scales like these the normal distance/velocity formulas don't apply. In general, if you point a flashlight into space and wait one year, the distance between you and the photons of light will be slightly higher than one lightyear. As you wait longer, this difference becomes less slight. When you get up to much larger scales (billions of lightyears) the Hubble expansion dominates the equations. In the most extreme cases, you get counterintuitive things popping up like distances that are so large they can't be traversed in any amount of time, even at light speed. Until you're using equations that make that seem natural, you shouldn't rely intuitive calculations from NASA press releases like this. Convincing science journalists of this fact is one of my minor life goals.
- riobard 15y ago
  So what's the actual time it takes for light to travel 12 billion lightyears?

TeMPOraL 15y ago

This article has just brought back to life my child faith that space hides lots of amaing surprises for us. Thank you :).

sgt 15y ago

Could there be life inside of this water?

loire280 15y ago
According to the JPL article linked above, the water vapor is "300 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere." So it sounds like the cloud may as well be empty vacuum as far as life is concerned.

mapgrep 15y ago

What is the deal with the Engadget headline? Is it supposed to be a joke? The black hole claims it was just hydrating? I'm trying to accept the silly/weird premise in good humor, but I still don't "get" why the figurative humanish black hole is defensive about converting water vapor to energy. Maybe there's an obscure sci-fi or Seinfeld reference I'm missing.

jackpirate 15y ago
It's a http://fark.com http://fark.com style headline. No idea why engadget adopted it though.
- mortenjorck 15y ago
  Engadget used to have witty headlines when they were covering something legitimately funny or ironic. The writing had a sort of fun, Brooklyn street-vibe to it that dated to when Peter Rojas ran the site. Unfortunately, this headline is a perfect example of where Engadget has gone in its AOL-Way, post-Topolsky era: trying to be funny by formula. It's mostly missing the charm of the style it is ostensibly following.