Where does the water from the Earth come from? Solar Nebula, study suggests | Smart News

Scientists have long postulated that water came to our planet through comets and ice-covered asteroids, but a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets identifies a additional origin for life. holding fluid: solar nebula or persistent gas and dust clouds in the universe after sun formation.

The chemical formula at the base of the water is deceptively simple. Take two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen, then combine them into a molecule that looks distinctly like Mickey Mouse. "Because … oxygen is abundant," says in a statement by Steven Desch, co-author of the study and astrophysicist at Arizona State University, "any source hydrogen could have been at the origin of the water of the Earth. . "

As Chelsea Gohd wrote for the magazine Discover the hydrogen gas contained in the solar nebula was incorporated into the interiors of the planets during their formation. Although much of this hydrogen remains trapped in the core of our planet, the badysis of the ASU team suggests that a small part has managed to escape, contributing thus to the construction of the building blocks of one molecule of water on 100 found on Earth.

The two most commonly accepted water sources – asteroids and comets – based their badessments on the chemical signatures of seawater and asteroids, which contain similar ratios of deuterium, of an isotope of heavy hydrogen and normal hydrogen. But as Nick Carne reports in Cosmos samples taken from the depths of the Earth's interior, near the boundary between the core and the mantle, show lower levels of deuterium, the non-asteroidal origins of the gas. [19659006] "The Earth had to start with an additional source of hydrogen containing less deuterium in hydrogen than the asteroids," explains Desch to Popular Science by Nel V. Patel. "The only possible source is the solar gas of the nebula."

According to Patel, the main theory of scientists surrounds the early interactions between waterlogged asteroids, which crashed to form planetary embryos with an outer layer of magma, and solar nebulae to strong hydrogen content. When the solar nebula encountered the magma of these burgeoning planets, it began to create an atmosphere, sending dissolved hydrogen beyond the magma inside the embryos. Through a process known as isotopic fractionation, normal hydrogen continued to sink deep into the nucleus, while deuterium isotopes remained in the mantle. Continued fusion with smaller embryos and other celestial bodies eventually allowed Earth to gain enough water and mbad to reach its final size.

These asteroid impacts generated the majority of the planet's water, notes Mindy Weisberger for Live Science but a small part – relatively speaking, because the amount Nested water in the Earth is actually high enough to form seven or eight oceans – found near the nucleus seem to come from the hydrogen produced by the solar nebula.

Desch says Popular Science that the findings of the team could help scientists better explore the livability of other worlds. 19659006] "Even planets that form away from water-rich asteroid sources can still have them," he says. "Not as much as the Earth, perhaps, but there is a floor of about 0.1 to 0.2 oceans of hydrogen [applicable to Venus and many other exoplanets]. As far as the model is verified, it strongly supports the idea of ​​rapid global growth. "

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