Question:
What was the original source of water on the earth?
Replies:
Hi Avin!
The original source of water on earth probably began some 4.5 billion of
years ago when the planet was beeing formed. Scientists consider 3 possible
sources for water , namely:
separated from the rocks that made the bulk of earth;
arrived from outer-space, as part of meteorites;
arrived from outer-space, as part of comets.
These still are theories, mostly because outer-space water sometimes
is not exactly the same kind of "our" water ( for example, the hydrogen
is heavy isotope deuterium ) .
Anyway, quite answering your question science@NASA bulletin published
today (05/18) (Science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18may_1.html)
tell us about the breaking of comet LINEAR as it passed near the Sun,
releasing water with the same composition as oceans earth water. That
is somehow a heavy argument for the theory of comets beeing carriers of
water to planet earth.
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