Not Just Asteroids: Scientists Finally Know Where Water On Earth Came From

Earth is often referred to as "The Blue Planet" owing to the amount of water present on our stunning planet. Now, scientists may have figured out where water came from on Earth.

About 70 per cent of Earth's surface is made up of water. Scientists suspected that the water came from a group of asteroids known as carbonaceous or simply as "C-type asteroids."

There was a gap that scientists may have finally filled now. Earth's water should have been laced with deuterium, which is essentially a heavier version of hydrogen if the asteroids were the sole source of our water.

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Did Sun give us water?

Turns out, our Sun may have played an important role in creation of water on Earth. Solar winds are charged with hydrogen and helium ions, implying that if they came in contact with asteroids or even asteroid dust, the hydrogen ions in the wind would have interacted with oxygen atoms in the asteroid to create H20.

The first proof of Sun's role in Earth's vast water bodies was confirmed based on samples from asteroid Itokawa that were bought to Earth in 2010 by Japanese space agency's Hayabusa space probe.

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In a paper published on Monday in Nature Astronomy, scientists confirmed the Sun as one of the likely contributors to water on Earth. The hydrogen from solar winds combined with deuterium from asteroids created the backbone of water on Earth.

What do you think - did water on Earth come from a single source or from multiple sources as scientists now claim? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.

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Citation

Daly, L. (2021, November 29). Solar wind contributions to Earth's oceans. Nature Astronomy.?