Originally posted by RJHinds
I was speculating that water may have cooled the moon. Maybe it was liquid nitrogen. It is only the surface of the moon that is cool, just like the earth. The water may have evaporated and came down to earth as rain. Maybe the gravitational pull of the moon was not strong enough to cause the water to cause erosion or river beds. It is not necessary to e ...[text shortened]... the Ark had to come from Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the like.

The Instructor

I was speculating that water may have cooled the moon.

-which confirms your total ignorance. Water could not possibly have been what cooled the moon and for SEVERAL good reasons.

Maybe it was liquid nitrogen.

Which is even more absurd that water cooling the moon!!! liquid nitrogen certainly cannot exist on its surface because its boiling point is even lower!!! Actually, NO liquid can exist on the moon's surface because no liquid can exist in a vacuum!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100612145229AApnyMq
"if you put a liquid in a vacuum, it becomes a gas no matter what temperature.
this is because the vapor pressure in a vacuum is so low that it forms an equilibrium between its gaseous and liquid phases."
YouTube
"liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen cannot exist in the vacuum of space"

-are you STILL not convince? or do you want more?

Maybe the gravitational pull of the moon was not strong enough to cause the water to cause erosion or river beds.

The gravitational pull of the moon is not strong enough to allow ANY liquid water to exist ANYWHERE on its surface in the first place! And it is THIS that explains why we could not possibly see any evidence of liquid water once being on its surface and thus why we don't see such evidence.

Besides, if, hypothetically, liquid water COULD physically exist on its surface, how would luck of gravity prevent water erosion? There is still SOME gravity on the moon and enough to make water flow and water flowing or moving at any speed will cause SOME erosion! There is just so much wrong with you claims!!!

Originally posted by humy

I was speculating that water may have cooled the moon.

-which confirms your total ignorance. Water could not possibly have been what cooled the moon and for SEVERAL good reasons.

Maybe it was liquid nitrogen.

Which is even more absurd that water cooling the moon!!! liquid nitrogen certainly cannot exist on its sur ...[text shortened]... oving at any speed will cause SOME erosion! There is just so much wrong with you claims!!!

If liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen cannot exist in the vacuum of space, then were did it come from?

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
If liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen cannot exist in the vacuum of space, then were did it come from?

The Instructor

There is no liquid nitrogen, oxygen or hydrogen in the near-vacuum of space, so it didn't come from anywhere.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
There is no liquid nitrogen, oxygen or hydrogen in the near-vacuum of space, so it didn't come from anywhere.

Why do we have them now then if they did not come from somewhere?

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Why do we have them now then if they did not come from somewhere?

The Instructor

You really should try using your brain for something besides a hat rack. Try THINKING for a change. You supposedly had a couple years of physics and you don't know why liquids of any sort can't exist in space? You ever hear of that attribute called GRAVITY? It takes a large mass like the Earth to keep the air and water that came in from comets, which was the source for water and air on the early Earth. That plus volcano activity, which was a major feature of early Earth. All that activity, from comet and asteroid strikes early on and volcano's by the hundreds all over the planet, is what gave us our atmosphere.

The leading theory of how the moon got here was a mars size planet hit the Earth with a glancing blow and that took out a large chunk of the planet and launched it into nearby space which became the moon but also a large portion of it crashed back into Earth and buried itself and became a larger core which is why we have continents today.

Mars does not have continents because it had a much smaller core and so the heat flow from inside the planet was not enough to break up the crust and move things around.

It is the extra heat injected into the core from the creation of the moon that gave Earth its continents moving around, crashing into one another and drifting apart over millions of years that gave our planet its unique attributes we know of today.

Earth really is a jewel and it is a real shame we humans are screwing it up so badly. There is not another one like it within a thousand light years or more, there may be only a handful of Earth's in the entire galaxy.

It was a unique set of circumstances that led to the formation of Earth.

Our solar system is pretty unique in its own right. Hundreds of extra solar planets have been found now by several techniques and they are for the most part big Jupiter like planets only a few million miles from its sun which makes that planet several thousand degrees and it rules the gravitational situation near that planet and makes it impossible for small Earth like planets to have formed in the goldilocks zone.

Our solar system is so far unique in the fact that the big dudes like Jupiter and Saturn are safely out a billion or more miles from the sun, protecting the inner solar system from incoming comets by their huge gravity wells which keeps the bad stuff from hitting the Earth now.

Of course early one, there was so much junk floating around the solar system even Jupiter could not protect the Earth back then and we had strikes daily for millions of years till the inner system just ran dry of the big stuff.

That is why the moon still shows billions of craters, it is left over strikes from those very early days when there was a lot of crap in the inner system hitting the Earth, the moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars, they all took major hits from that accretion era.

All that accretion brought water here and to the moon and to Mars and to Mercury and Venus. But not enough for liquid to have formed for more than a few seconds so there is no sign of river erosion on the moon but there is ice deep inside craters at the poles of the moon where sunlight never hits which will be a boon for future moon colonies but it is just a pittance for the amount that would have been needed to cool it down.

It could only have been cooled by liquids if the liquid was a hundred miles deep and there are only a few places in the entire solar system where that situation exists and that happens to be on the moons of the outer planets, like Europa which is thought to have a hundred mile deep ocean kept liquid by tidal forces from its planet, Jupiter. That is not the only one thought to have deep oceans but they are all in the outer system not anywhere with in a billion miles of Earth or Mars or Venus or Mercury.

Originally posted by RJHinds
If liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen cannot exist in the vacuum of space, then were did it come from?

The Instructor

Why would they have to exist only in liquid form to exist?
Haven't you heard of the gases nitrogen and oxygen? -they make up most of our atmosphere.
They exist in space as highly dispersed gasses as well as in ionized form in gas clouds between stars (usually of tiny unmeasurable negligible pressure apart from where strong gravity pressurizes them on to stars and planets ) and where created via nuclear reactions from lighter chemical elements.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Why do we have them now then if they did not come from somewhere?

The Instructor

he was referring to LIQUID nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen; NOT gas. The chemical elements nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen that is around and on and in the earth originally was in GASEOUS form (and still is gaseous in the case of the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere ) in space and that's where they came from. LIQUID nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen has never come directly from space.

Originally posted by RJHinds
Why do we have them now then if they did not come from somewhere?

The Instructor

They liquified under circumstances quite different from those of space.

Originally posted by humy
he was referring to LIQUID nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen; NOT gas. The chemical elements nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen that is around and on and in the earth originally was in GASEOUS form (and still is gaseous in the case of the oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere ) in space and that's where they came from. LIQUID nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen has never come directly from space.

Oxygen and hydrogen mixed together make liquid water. That is what I was really talking about as a coolant for the moon. Scientist seem to think there could be water on other planets. Scientists see no reason that the conditions could have been right at one time for water to have existed on other planets, including the moons, or else they would not be looking for it. Also comets are believed to contain frozen water. Where does it come from?

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Oxygen and hydrogen mixed together make liquid water. That is what I was really talking about as a coolant for the moon. Scientist seem to think there could be water on other planets. Scientists see no reason that the conditions could have been right at one time for water to have existed on other planets, including the moons, or else they would not be loo ...[text shortened]... . Also comets are believed to contain frozen water. Where does it come from?

The Instructor

gadzuks you are frigging ignorant. If oxygen and hydrogen just mix together they don't produce water they produce a gas of hydrogen and oxygen mixed together. It is only when a spark appears and the mixture burns that molecules of water are formed. Stars take in hydrogen before they are stars and a cloud of the stuff starts to condense and after a certain degree of compression the hydrogen starts to fuse into other elements, giving off energy in the process. Some of those elements are oxygen and hydrogen and oxygen as well as other elements stream off the sun and diffuse into the solar wind. So some of that hydrogen will burn in oxygen and create water so you have basically a damp cloud of gas and when it condenses a billion miles from the sun, it can become part of a comet and that comet can then hit the Earth or the Moon and leave water behind. The Earth wins because it is bulked up compared to the moon and has about 6 times the gravity and therefore can retain an atmosphere and liquid water, being in the goldilocks zone, the volume in space around a star where the energy coming in is not so great as to evaporate water and not so cold so water doesn't instantly freeze. A bit of luck there. Mars is also in the goldilocks zone but has a gravity only about twice that of our moon so it lost out in the race to keep an atmosphere, also losing out in the lack of a big planetary sized magnetic field which shields our planet from incoming solar winds, converting that deadly inrush to a nice aurora display at the poles. You don't get aurora on mars so the solar wind just crashes right down to the surface which is a bummer for future colonists who would at least at first have to settle for living in underground bunkers.

But there is a lot of water left on mars, 90 % of all the water there evaporated right into space but there is still a lot of it there in the form of ice, or brine ice.

But the moon could never have held water in a liquid form because it just has too weak a gravitational field. So no water ever cooled the moon, what cooled the moon was self radiation. Over EONS of time. If the moon had been molten like it was early on, only 6000 years ago, it would be molten and red hot today. No getting around that fact. Radiation is a slow process, something I know intimately about since we have to put our devices into a vacuum chamber while at about 200 degrees C. If we have to take it out of the vacuum chamber an hour later with no other input of heat, it is VERY hot when you take it out requiring one to wear protective gloves to handle the parts. If the same parts were in atmosphere, even after 5 minutes it would be cool enough to handle. Radiation cooling is very inefficient in terms of BTU/kilogram/seconds.

The moon is no different in that regard. That just proves your idea of a young Earth and universe is just a fairy tale. Nobody in their right mind looking at places like the Alps or Mt. McKinley can say, wow, amazing that could happen in 6000 years.

Originally posted by sonhouse
gadzuks you are frigging ignorant. If oxygen and hydrogen just mix together they don't produce water they produce a gas of hydrogen and oxygen mixed together. It is only when a spark appears and the mixture burns that molecules of water are formed. Stars take in hydrogen before they are stars and a cloud of the stuff starts to condense and after a certain d t places like the Alps or Mt. McKinley can say, wow, amazing that could happen in 6000 years.

So you say the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen must also contain a "spark" to produce water. Then, where does the spark come from? If you believe there is water on mars because of its gravity, then why couldn't the gravity on the moon have been greater when it was formed? And since the comets have water in them, why couldn't some of these comets hitting the moon provide water for cooling the moon?

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Oxygen and hydrogen mixed together make liquid water. That is what I was really talking about as a coolant for the moon. Scientist seem to think there could be water on other planets. Scientists see no reason that the conditions could have been right at one time for water to have existed on other planets, including the moons, or else they would not be loo ...[text shortened]... . Also comets are believed to contain frozen water. Where does it come from?

The Instructor

Scientists see no reason that the conditions could have been right at one time for water to have existed on other planets, including the moons, or else they would not be looking for it.

NOT LIQUID water on the SURFACE of the Earth’s moon -because that would be pure nonsense. NO scientist says there is or ever was water on the surface of the Earth's moon nor is looking for liquid water on the surface of the moon nor would believe there ever existed such a thing there.

Also comets are believed to contain frozen water. Where does it come from?

-gaseous water molecules from outer space that condense into solid water ice on the surface of the comets where it is cold enough to allow that. It is a bit like frost but without involving an atmosphere.

Originally posted by RJHinds
So you say the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen must also contain a "spark" to produce water. Then, where does the spark come from? If you believe there is water on mars because of its gravity, then why couldn't the gravity on the moon have been greater when it was formed? And since the comets have water in them, why couldn't some of these comets hitting the moon provide water for cooling the moon?

The Instructor

So you say the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen must also contain a "spark" to produce water. Then, where does the spark come from?

If you are talking about the water that originated from comets, that water was gaseous water molecules from outer space that condense into solid water ice on the surface of the comets and then the comet impacts on the moons and planets brought some of that water to them with much of the rest coming from gravity of those planets directly pulling in that gaseous water molecules from outer space that was around in huge quantities for a time when the solar system was first forming.
As for where those gaseous water molecules from outer space came from in the early solar system; ionized oxygen molecules in space reacted with ionized hydrogen (protons ) in space by collisions of the two -no 'spark' needed for this!

If you believe there is water on mars because of its gravity, then why couldn't the gravity on the moon have been greater when it was formed?

that doesn't make any sense at all. The moon's gravity is determined by its mass. For its gravity to have been greater when it was formed by enough to allow liquid water to exist on its surface, its mass would have to have been more than twice its mass is today! Where did all that extra mass go? What on earth caused the moon to loose more than half its mass!?

And since the comets have water in them, why couldn't some of these comets hitting the moon provide water for cooling the moon?

Comet impacts create massive amounts of heat via their kinetic energy being converted to heat energy on impact! So, rather than comet impacts 'cooling' the moon, they would have temporarily heated it up! They having frozen water in them would not change that -the frozen water would have been instantly vaporized on impact and all of it immediately simply lost to outer space in either gaseous or ionized form but NEVER in liquid form! (although very small amounts of it may have then condensed out in solid form, a bit like frost, on some of the coldest surfaces on the poles of the moon. But not even this would cause cooling! ) In fact, the frozen water would have simply ADDED to the heat energy generated! -by adding to the overall mass and therefore their kinetic energy of the comets at a given speed!

Originally posted by RJHinds
So you say the mixture of hydrogen and oxygen must also contain a "spark" to produce water. Then, where does the spark come from? If you believe there is water on mars because of its gravity, then why couldn't the gravity on the moon have been greater when it was formed? And since the comets have water in them, why couldn't some of these comets hitting the moon provide water for cooling the moon?

The Instructor

Gravity is not always the determining factor for a thick atmosphere being on a planet or moon, it is also a magnetic field.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/moon-mars/what-happened-to-mars-atmosphere-15277534

Europa (Jupiter's natural satellite) is slightly smaller than the Moon, but it has an atmosphere (and might have water beneath an icy surface) because it is protected by Jupiter's immense magnetic field.

http://archive.seti.org/news/features/magnetic-fields-europa.php

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15754786

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Gravity is not always the determining factor for a thick atmosphere being on a planet or moon, it is also a magnetic field.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/moon-mars/what-happened-to-mars-atmosphere-15277534

Europa (Jupiter's natural satellite) is slightly smaller than the Moon, but it has an atmosphere (and might have water beneath /features/magnetic-fields-europa.php

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15754786

Speaking of magnetic fields, I was thinking about the problem of Mars not having much in the way of magnetic fields, some local ones but not enough to shield the planet. So I'm thinking, if and when we get room temperature + superconductors, would it be possible to bury that cable around the equator of Mars and start a current flowing, powered by a huge solar cell array. Anyone have any idea how much current would need to flow in such an array and if more than one loop around the planet would be needed? I think if you have ten loops around the equator, the same field strength would come from 1/10th the current but what would that field strength be for a reasonable current?

Anyone want to tackle that calculation?

Mars is about 21,343 kilometers in circumference. (13340 miles)

That is roughly half the circumference of Earth.