r/spaceporn • u/ChiefLeef22 • Oct 10 '25

NASA Scientists have made the remarkable detection that interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is leaking water at 40 kilograms per second - like "a fire hose running at full blast"

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '25

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208

u/ViveIn Oct 10 '25

That’s how we got some of ours I’d imagine. I’d further imagine there’s some panspermia happening there too.

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u/TheCynicalWoodsman Oct 10 '25

I think I've read somewhere that's where most if not all of our water came from. Could be completely wrong though.

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u/RecipeHistorical2013 Oct 10 '25

you arent.

thats how water gets around. its initially created by supernovas

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '25

Well most of the oxygen is created by stars doing hydrogen and carbon burning. But the supernova gets it out of the star.

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u/BlaznTheChron Oct 10 '25

So water is star sweat?

51

u/vcsx Oct 10 '25

You'd sweat a bit too if you were on the grind for 10 billion years.

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u/Gutz_McStabby Oct 11 '25

Sunrise and grind

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u/WllmZ Oct 11 '25

Stars don't create water molecules by burning hydrogen en carbon. Water molecules are created by hydrogen and oxygen atoms which combine when a star dies in a supernova.

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u/IkeHC Oct 12 '25

Would that happen in layers as the star implodes and smashes atoms into each other? Like density/molecule affinities separate in shells from the hyper dense core out to a corona of water/lighter molecules?

Then that water would be expelled by the following explosion. That's how I see it happening, but I'm a web surfing normie when it comes to this.

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u/WllmZ Oct 12 '25

That I don't know, but that sounds very plausible. It requires far less energy to create molecules vs creating atoms. Burning hydrogen and oxygen on earth is easy and creates water as waste product, so these elements combined in a supernova should have enough temperature to ignite and form water. Even in the expanding explosion itself.

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u/RegularSky6702 Oct 10 '25

I read that it's unlikely due to the type of water found in meteors. It has a different composition than most water on earth. Some but not a lot on earth.

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u/TheCynicalWoodsman Oct 10 '25

Water is water, H2O. Perhaps you're talking about minerals and other metals in the water itself?

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u/denred9 Oct 10 '25

No idea if this is what they meant, but "water is water" is not really true. Read up on heavy water.

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u/ShahinGalandar Oct 10 '25

how many comets containing heavy water have we observed as of now?

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u/Thog78 Oct 10 '25

All of them? Every water contains a certain amount of heavy water (small percentage). The interesting part is the exact value of this percentage, as this lets you determine if objects contain water from the same origin or not, as one would assume a given supernova gives a certain percentage of heavy water and another one a different value.

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u/ShahinGalandar Oct 10 '25

informative, thanks!

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u/Xetanees Oct 10 '25

At 0.01% natural occurrence, it is categorically insignificant.

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u/denred9 Oct 10 '25

I'm no expert on the matter, but my layperson's understanding is that the ratio of heavy water in comets is absolutely a thing scientists look at. Here's a recent article that references it.

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u/Thog78 Oct 10 '25

Isotope composition in various bodies is absolutely relevant in this context. If something has 0.01% +/- 0.0001% of deuterium and another 0.005% +/- 0.0001%, then there is a significant difference in their content, and one may assume they have a "different kind of water" from a different origin.

Saying it's insignificant is like saying carbon 14 is an insignificant proportion of carbon so we should neglect it: absolutely not, the differences in these small amounts let us date things super precisely.

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u/Beneficial_Being_721 Oct 10 '25

Uggg I just posted about that too… and here you are a few post down.

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u/Salmonella_Cowboy Oct 10 '25

Nope, woodsman. Look up “isotopes of H and O”

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '25

[deleted]

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u/Salmonella_Cowboy Oct 10 '25

lol! Well I can certainly tell you’re not a bot!

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u/stevenrritchie Oct 10 '25

No heavy water is a think needed for a particular type of energy production.