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What's the third most common element (in the universe)? tl;dr: Oxygen But it's worth reading the article to learn why.
by ghubbard 11y ago
What's the third most common element (in the universe)?
tl;dr: Oxygen
But it's worth reading the article to learn why.
- raverbashing 11y agoFrom what we can conclude that: water is very common (Of course, most likely not in liquid form)
- lmm 11y agoNo we can't. If it's not molecules, it's not water, and there's nothing here to indicate whether the hydrogen and oxygen are found bound together.
- raverbashing 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#In_the_universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#In_the_universe While water will break down at high temperatures I would find it surprising that 1st and 3rd most common elements in the whole universe, that readily combine to form water would not result in substantial amounts of water. It's probably like saying we shouldn't find H2 because "nothing says they are found bound together"
- gpvos 11y agoStill can't conclude it from just the data presented here.
- raverbashing 11y agoYou have to explain more than that
- weego 11y agoYou provided a conjecture based on incomplete data as fact, he stated that it's conjecture until additional data to support it is there... the burden in this situation is not on him.
- raverbashing 11y ago> You provided a conjecture based on incomplete data as fact, No, I never said it is a fact, it is, as you pointed, a conjecture, and I provided a source (ok, wikipedia) for the amount of water in the universe If you or him knows of a reason for why the most common elements in the universe that combine easily wouldn't result in an abundance of their combination I'm all ears. (Which doesn't mean the amount of water is going to be near the amount of H2 or just the amount of Hydrogen present in the stars)
- gpvos 11y agoYeah, I was a bit out of line there, sorry. It is pretty common knowledge that H and O combine easily.
- dannypgh 11y agoMost atoms- and certainly most hydrogen- are in stars, no? Not exactly places where water "breaking down at high temperatures" (really, never forming) can be ignored.
- raverbashing 11y agoYes, I guess not even H2 is much stable in stars. I would expect that in planet formation situations
- saalweachter 11y agoIt looks like most stars are too hot for molecular hydrogen, but some stars have a bit -- our own sun has some molecular hydrogen in sunspots: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/mar/13/cold-hydrogen-molecules-found-on-hot-stars http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/mar/13/cold-hy...
- jigg4joe 11y agoMost hydrogen (and baryonic mass in the universe) is in the interstellar/intergalactic gas clouds
- jrmenon 11y agoActually the abundance of water was detected in some young sun-like stars: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/herschel-spots-young-star-spewing-water-jets-interstellar-space http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/herschel-sp...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- gpvos 11y agoNote that the very interesting graph near the end of the article actually displays element abundance in the solar system, not in the universe. (Found that out when looking it up in Wikipedia.) The article misrepresents this!
- SquareWheel 11y agoI also searched it up on Wiki. They have a larger version of the image, and a data source. Link: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nucleosynthesis_periodic_table.svg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nucleosynthesis_perio...
- gpvos 11y agoAnd the one that I actually meant: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SolarSystemAbundances.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SolarSystemAbundance...
- hashmymustache 11y agoyada yada yada, cosmological principle
- gpvos 11y agoThe cosmological principle works when considering a large enough scale. A solar system of a particular type of star, even though that star is pretty average and unremarkable, is not really large enough. Although the numbers are indeed not too far off.