WHAT OLDER THE SUN OR WATER IT BEEN THERE BILLION YEAR'S WATER

Much of the water on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system likely predates the birth of the sun, a new study reports.

The finding suggests that water is commonly incorporated into newly forming planets throughout the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, researchers said — good news for anyone hoping that Earth isn't the only world to host life.

"The implications of our study are that interstellar water-ice remarkably survived the incredibly violent process of stellar birth to then be incorporated into planetary bodies," study lead author Ilse Cleeves, an astronomy Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, told Space.com via email  . Theories on the Origin of Life

If our sun's formation was typical, interstellar ices, including water, likely survive and are a common ingredient during the formation of all extrasolar systems," Cleeves added. "This is particularly exciting given the number of confirmed extrasolar planetary systems to date — that they, too, had access to abundant, life-fostering water during their formation."

Astronomers have discovered nearly 2,000 exoplanets so far, and many billions likely lurk undetected in the depths of space. On average, every Milky Way star is thought to host at least one planet.

Our solar system abounds with water. Oceans of it slosh about not only on Earth's surface but also beneath the icy shells of Jupiter's moon Europa and the Saturn satellite  Enceladus. And water ice is found on Earth's moon, on comets, at the Martian poles and even inside shadowed craters on Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

Cleeves and her colleagues wanted to know where all this water came from.

"Why is this important? If water in the early solar system was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," study co-author Conel Alexander, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., said in a statement.

"But if the early solar system's water was largely the result of local chemical processing during the sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere," Alexander added.

Heavy and 'normal' water

Not all water is "standard" H2O. Some water molecules contain deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen that contains one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. (Isotopes are different versions of an element whose atoms have the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons. The most common hydrogen isotope, known as protium, for example, has one proton but no neutrons.)

Because they have different masses, deuterium and protium behave differently during chemical reactions. Some environments are thus more conducive to the formation of "heavy" water — including super-cold places like interstellar space.

The researchers constructed models that simulated reactions within a protoplanetary disk, in an effort to determine if processes during the early days of the solar system could have generated the concentrations of heavy water observed today in Earth's oceans, cometary material and meteorite samples.

The team reset deuterium levels to zero at the beginning of the simulations, then watched to see if enough deuterium-enriched ice could be produced within 1 million years — a standard lifetime for planet-forming disks.

The answer was no. The results suggest that up to 30 to 50 percent of Earth's ocean water and perhaps 60 to 100 percent of the water on comets originally formed in interstellar space, before the sun was born. (These are the high-end estimates generated by the simulations; the low-end estimates suggest that at least 7 percent of ocean water and at least 14 percent of comet water predates the sun.)

"A significant fraction of Earth's water is likely incredibly old, so old that it predates the Earth itself," Cleeves said. "For me, uncovering these kinds of direct links between our daily experience and the galaxy at large is fascinating and puts a wonderful perspective on our place in the universe."

WHY HURRICANES HAVE NAMES

Hurricane names are even fodder for comedians. Sardonic comedian Lewis Black has expressed his views of 1991's Hurricane Bob and 1999's Hurricane Lenny. Satirical news source "The Onion" suggested that a nameless hurricane would be terrifying compared to a storm named 'Earl'. In 2012, Hurricane Fabio, which did not threaten land, elicited snickers from meteorologists tracking the storm in the Eastern Pacific.

A Little History

The word hurricane is derived from the Spanish word "huracan," which was most likely inspired by Hunrakan, the Mayan storm god, and Hurakan, a Taino and Carib god. The word hurricane was first used to describe any localized tropical cyclone in the West Indies.Today, a hurricane is an Atlantic or Eastern Pacific Basin tropical cyclone with maximum sustained wind speeds of 74 mph or higher.

Multiple tropical cyclones can develop simultaneously in various ocean basins, creating the possibility of confusion if a method for differentiating the storms did not exist. Naming tropical cyclones allows meteorologists to observe, track, and communicate the whereabouts of various systems at a given time.It is important to note that tropical cyclones/hurricanes are named neither after any particular person, nor with any preference in alphabetical sequence," states the WMO. "The tropical cyclone/hurricane names selected are those that are familiar to the people in each region."

Particularly deadly or costly storm names are retired in order to avoid confusion or insensitivity, and a new name is selected in its place. The names Camille, Andrew, and Katrina are among the retired.

Hurricane vs. Typhoon: What's the Difference?

The difference is rather simple: A tropical cyclone will be designated either a hurricane or a typhoon or a cyclone depending on the basin in which it forms.

Tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Basin that reach the 74 mph sustained wind speed threshold are called hurricanes, and they are monitored by the National Hurricane Center.

LARGER IMAGE

In the Central and Eastern Pacific Basin, tropical cyclones are also called hurricanes, and they are monitored by the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

In the Western Pacific Basin, tropical cyclones that exhibit sustained wind speeds of 39 mph are called tropical storms, just like in the Atlantic and in the eastern Pacific. At this point, they would receive a name from the list designated by the World Meteorological Organization.

However, when sustained wind speeds reach 74 mph, the cyclone is not called a hurricane but rather a typhoon,and they are monitored by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center as well as the Japan Meteorological Agency. When wind speeds reach 150 mph or greater, the system is called a "super typhoon", which is the equivalent of a strong Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.

When typhoons threaten the Philippines, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) monitors the cyclones. As typhoons move west into China, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) monitors the storms.

In the southwestern Pacific and Indian Basins, the systems are called cyclones, and they are monitored by a handful of agencies including the India Meteorological Department, Meteo-France, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, and the Meteorological Service of New Zealand.

Historically, the convention behind naming hurricanes started off innocuously enough. For centuries, forecasters named storms after they hit, and those names would associate the storm with a particular place, time, or event. If a storm struck a particular ship or town, the hurricane was named after the collateral damage. An example of this is the Long Island Express, which is a hurricane that struck New England in 1938.

A modern example of naming hurricanes based on the day is the September 1935  Labor Day Hurricane, which earned its name because it made landfall in the central Florida Keys on Labor Day.

Why Do Tropical Storms and Hurricanes Receive Names Like Bob, Sandy, or Don?

Obviously meteorologists no longer name tropical storms and hurricanes after locations, dates, and saints. But why do they receive names like Norbert, Bob, Sandy, or Don?

It turns out that the process of naming hurricanes has a colorful history. What began as an Australian scientist's meteorological "middle finger" toward local politicians in the early 1900s morphed into a seemingly benign practice half a century later.

According to Chris Landsea at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), Clement Wragge, the Australian forecaster, began tracking tropical systems near the Australian continent in the early 1900s, and he was the first person to attribute a proper name to tropical cyclones.

Wragge originally used letters of the alphabet to identify storms before changing course to South Sea Island girls' names. However, when the Australian government refused to support his meteorological efforts, Wragge began attributing named storms “after political figures whom he disliked,” according to the AOML. 

"By properly naming a hurricane, the weatherman could publicly describe a politician (who perhaps was not too generous with weather-bureau appropriations) as 'causing great distress' or 'wandering aimlessly about the Pacific,'" writes Landsea.

Years later, author George Stewart took inspiration from Wragge and wrote the novel "Storm." One of the characters in the book was a meteorologist who named Pacific systems after former girlfriends. Published in 1941, the novel was a hit with the U.S. Army Air Corp and Navy forecasters. Military forecasters began unofficially naming Pacific tempests "in honor” of their girlfriends and wives off-the-record.

"The U.S. Weather Bureau had a long history of being a somewhat stodgy institution in which change was disparaged," says Neal Dorst, a research meteorologist at the AOML. "They wanted to be seen as a serious enterprise, and using women's names for storms was looked upon as frivolous. They would have felt that using such names in official communications would have made them look silly."

George R. StewartWIKIPEDIA/PEPSO

Portrait of George R. Stewart

Nevertheless, military squadrons and meteorologists needed a system for denoting and tracking storms that formed in the Atlantic and Pacific Basins. In 1947, the U.S. Air Force compromised by using the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet. According to Dorst, the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet names were used in communications between aircraft and weather centers, however the names were not included in any public communications. Despite the use of the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet, Dorst explains a possible female name storm list was used by Air Force Hurricane Hunters during missions in 1947, as documented in the September issue of the "Coronet" magazine issued in September 1948.

The protocol for naming hurricanes and tropical storms solidified in 1950. That summer, three hurricanes developed simultaneously in the Atlantic Basin, generating confusion among the public and the press, who were not aware of any naming scheme for tropical storms and hurricanes. Instead of waiting until the following summer to introduce the naming concept to the public, the United States Weather Bureau (the precursor to the National Weather Service) and the Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference pulled the trigger on the fourth storm and named it Fox.

2014 Atlantic Names

In the Atlantic Basin, forecasters used the Army/Navy phonetic alphabet for tropical storms and hurricanes between 1950 and 1952. The list changed in 1952 to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) because the Army/Navy list was deemed too Anglo-centric. The change did not go smoothly.

"The U.S. Weather Bureau and the Armed Services would have adopted the new international standard, but as this was the first year of its use, I'm sure not everyone got the memo, which led to the confusion," said Dorst.

However, the confusion over the IPA wasn't the only debatable topic.

The Fight for Naming Equality

In 1953, the Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference and the U.S. Weather Bureau acquiesced to using women's names for labeling storms. Controversy began as early as 1954, when the October 19 edition of the Miami News wrote, "[it] seems a number of Northern newspapers editorially thought it was 'Capricious' to call the hurricanes Hazel, Carol, Alice, etc."

The Miami News

A clipping from the Oct. 18, 1954 edition of The Miami News.

In 1955, the Times-News, reported on a New Jersey politician's disdain for the policy. The article reported Rep. T. James Tumulty (D-NJ) "told a reporter that by following the practice, the weather bureau 'tends to treat a serious matter frivolously and may even aid to the deaths, injuries, and destruction' caused by hurricanes by unconsciously prompting the public to regard them frivolously, too." The paper then listed Tumulty's suggested list of names: Hurricane Awesome, Hurricane Blustery, Hurricane Casualty, and Hurricane Death.

EARTH IS DR. JEKYLL AND VENUS IS MRS HYDE

Earth is Dr. Jekyll, men are from mars, and Venus is Mrs. Hyde,100 billion Venus-like planets in our galaxy. Hopefully astronomers will be able to find more difficult to detect Earth-size planets in Earth-like orbits so that they can come up with an estimate on the prevalence of habitable planets soon.you can't distinguish between the two based only on size," lead author Stephen Kane, of San Francisco State University, said in a statement. "So the question then is, how do you define those differences, and how many 'Venuses' is Kepler actually finding?" The results could also lead to a better understanding of Earth's history, Kane added. We believe the Earth and Venus had similar starts in terms of their atmospheric evolution," he said. "Something changed at one point, and the obvious difference between the two is proximity to the sun." Kane and his team defined the Venus Zone based on solar flux — the amount of stellar energy that orbiting planets receive. The outer edge of the zone is the point at which a runaway greenhouse effect would take hold, with a planet's temperature soaring thanks to heat-trapping gases in its atmosphere. The inner boundary, meanwhile, is the distance at which stellar radiation would completely strip away a planet's air. The thinking is similar to that behind the "habitable zone" — the just-right range of distances from a star at which liquid water, and perhaps life as we know it, may be able to exist. The dimensions of these astronomical zones vary from star to star, since some stars are hotter than others. In our own solar system, the Venus Zone's outer boundary lies just inside the orbit of Earth, researchers said. Future space-based instruments — such as NASA's $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2018 — will be able to analyze some exoplanets' atmospheres, helping scientists refine the Venus Zone concept, researchers said. "If we find all of these planets in the Venus Zone have a runaway greenhouse-gas effect, then we know that the distance a planet is from its star is a major determining factor. That's helpful to understanding the history between Venus and Earth," Kane said. "This is ultimately about putting our solar system in context," he added. "We want to know if various aspects of our solar system are rare or common." Kepler spacecraft launched in March 2009 on a mission to determine how commonly Earth-like planets occur around the Milky Way galaxy. To date, Kepler has detected more than 4,200 exoplanet candidates, 978 of which have been confirmed by follow-up observations or analysis. Mission team members think about 90 percent of the candidates will eventually turn out to be the real deal. The telescope suffered a glitch in May 2013 that ended its original exoplanet hunt, but Kepler has embarked upon a new mission called K2, which calls for it to observe a range of cosmic objects and phenomena.