Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

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  • CWSmith
    New Hampshire
    • Nov 2008
    • 43999

    Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

    From a NASA news release today. Of course, it raises other questions, but it is interesting.


    Oct. 5, 2011

    Dwayne Brown
    Headquarters, Washington
    202-358-1726
    [email protected]

    Whitney Clavin
    Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
    818-354-4673
    [email protected]
    RELEASE: 11-338

    SPACE OBSERVATORY PROVIDES CLUES TO CREATION OF EARTH'S OCEANS

    WASHINGTON -- Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same
    kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and
    created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface
    ended up covered in water.

    New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet
    Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water
    with the same chemical signature as Earth's oceans. This remote
    region of the solar system, some 30 to 50 times as far away as the
    distance between Earth and the sun, is home to icy, rocky bodies
    including Pluto, other dwarf planets and innumerable comets.

    "Our results with Herschel suggest that comets could have played a
    major role in bringing vast amounts of water to an early Earth," said
    Dariusz Lis, senior research associate in physics at the California
    Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-author of a new paper in
    the journal Nature, published online Oct. 5. "This finding
    substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water in the
    solar system to now include icy bodies originating in the Kuiper
    Belt."

    Scientists theorize Earth started out hot and dry, so that water
    critical for life must have been delivered millions of years later by
    asteroid and comet impacts. Until now, none of the comets previously
    studied contained water like Earth's. However, Herschel's
    observations of Hartley 2, the first in-depth look at water in a
    comet from the Kuiper Belt, paint a different picture.

    Herschel peered into the comet's coma, or thin, gaseous atmosphere.
    The coma develops as frozen materials inside a comet vaporize while
    on approach to the sun. This glowing envelope surrounds the comet's
    "icy dirtball"-like core and streams behind the object in a
    characteristic tail.

    Herschel detected the signature of vaporized water in this coma and,
    to the surprise of the scientists, Hartley 2 possessed half as much
    "heavy water" as other comets analyzed to date. In heavy water, one
    of the two normal hydrogen atoms has been replaced by the heavy
    hydrogen isotope known as deuterium. The ratio between heavy water
    and light, or regular, water in Hartley 2 is the same as the water on
    Earth's surface. The amount of heavy water in a comet is related to
    the environment where the comet formed.

    By tracking the path of Hartley 2 as it swoops into Earth's
    neighborhood in the inner solar system every six and a half years,
    astronomers know that it comes from the Kuiper Belt. The five comets
    besides Hartley 2 whose heavy-water-to-regular-water ratios have been
    obtained all come from an even more distant region in the solar
    system called the Oort Cloud. This swarm of bodies, 10,000 times
    farther afield than the Kuiper Belt, is the wellspring for most
    documented comets.

    Given the higher ratios of heavy water seen in Oort Cloud comets
    compared to Earth's oceans, astronomers had concluded that the
    contribution by comets to Earth's total water volume stood at
    approximately 10 percent. Asteroids, which are found mostly in a band
    between Mars and Jupiter but occasionally stray into Earth's
    vicinity, looked like the major depositors. The new results, however,
    point to Kuiper Belt comets having performed a previously
    underappreciated service in bearing water to Earth.

    How these objects ever came to possess the tell-tale oceanic water is
    puzzling. Astronomers had expected Kuiper Belt comets to have even
    more heavy water than Oort Cloud comets because the latter are
    thought to have formed closer to the sun than those in the Kuiper
    Belt. Therefore, Oort Cloud bodies should have had less frozen heavy
    water locked in them prior to their ejection to the fringes as the
    solar system evolved.

    "Our study indicates that our understanding of the distribution of the
    lightest elements and their isotopes, as well as the dynamics of the
    early solar system, is incomplete," said co-author Geoffrey Blake,
    professor of planetary science and chemistry at Caltech. "In the
    early solar system, comets and asteroids must have been moving all
    over the place, and it appears that some of them crash-landed on our
    planet and made our oceans."

    Herschel is a European Space Agency cornerstone mission, with science
    instruments provided by consortia of European institutes. NASA's
    Herschel Project Office is based at the agency's Jet Propulsion
    Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which contributed mission-enabling
    technology for two of Herschel's three science instruments. The NASA
    Herschel Science Center, part of the Infrared Processing and Analysis
    Center at Caltech in Pasadena, supports the U.S. astronomical
    community.

    For NASA's Herschel website, visit:



    For ESA's Herschel website, visit:



    -end-

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  • seanz
    Resilient?
    • Nov 2006
    • 23662

    #2
    Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

    I liked this......

    Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.


    I wondered where the comets came from.
    We don't know how lucky we are....

    Comment

    • Mrleft8
      Banned
      • Feb 2000
      • 31864

      #3
      Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

      Originally posted by seanz
      I liked this......

      Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.


      I wondered where the comets came from.
      Under the kitchen sink.... Right next to the "Easy Offs", and the "Fantastics"...

      Comment

      • skuthorp
        Senior Member
        • Jan 2002
        • 73602

        #4
        Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

        Thanks for this thread, that's another few hours to be found for some more reading. Darned internet!

        Comment

        • Woxbox
          Senior Member
          • Feb 2006
          • 9923

          #5
          Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

          And this must advance the theory that the building blocks of life itself arrived from afar in that very same water.
          -Dave

          Comment

          • purri
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2009
            • 12954

            #6
            Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

            In the beginning was Bill Halley, then the Comets.
            Xanthorrea

            Comment

            • Y Bar Ranch
              Uberlubber
              • May 2005
              • 2968

              #7
              Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

              THIS WHOLE THREAD MAKES ME WANT TO PISS LIKE A YOU-KNOW-WHAT

              It will all be OK in the end...so if it's not OK, you're not at the end.

              Comment

              • skipper68
                Banned
                • May 2010
                • 5700

                #8
                Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

                Originally posted by Woxbox
                And this must advance the theory that the building blocks of life itself arrived from afar in that very same water.
                I knew that. How much did THAT cost? Here's oxygen being farted out by bacteria.https://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3...-oxygen-record Here is bacteria making petro.https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...cle4133668.ece

                Comment

                • brad9798
                  Senior Member
                  • May 2000
                  • 10739

                  #9
                  Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

                  Excellent deduction, woxbox! And true, I would guess!
                  Nothing else matters but how I raise my children ... and their opinion of me, as a father.

                  Comment

                  • Woxbox
                    Senior Member
                    • Feb 2006
                    • 9923

                    #10
                    Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

                    What I'm getting at is the conviction once held that there must have been a warm soupy mix of water and other goodies for life to form -- and therefore it must have occurred on this planet. But there is a strong argument that ice is a better crucible for life, and just maybe things were well underway elsewhere under conditions once thought impossible for the chemical reactions etc. necessary to get things going.
                    -Dave

                    Comment

                    • johnw
                      Senior Member
                      • Nov 2001
                      • 28589

                      #11
                      Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

                      Originally posted by Woxbox
                      And this must advance the theory that the building blocks of life itself arrived from afar in that very same water.
                      And we, therefore, are the alien life form we've been looking for.
                      On the trailing edge of technology.

                      https://www.amazon.com/Outlaw-John-L.../dp/B07LC6Y934

                      http://www.scribd.com/johnmwatkins/documents

                      http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blogspot.com/

                      Comment

                      • skipper68
                        Banned
                        • May 2010
                        • 5700

                        #12
                        Re: Possible Source of Earth's Oceans

                        Originally posted by skipper68
                        I knew that. How much did THAT cost? Here's oxygen being farted out by bacteria.https://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3...-oxygen-record Here is bacteria making petro.https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/ne...cle4133668.ece
                        en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_​water_on_​Earth No one ever reads my posts.
                        And we, therefore, are the alien life form we've been looking for.
                        Who said it's not our future, visiting?

                        Comment

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