Scientists find possible source of the water on Earth
Scientists have developed a new theory of how water could have formed on Earth. Observations from other planets provided the new findings.
The scientists describe their finds in one report, which was published in the journal Nature. However, the investigations not only explain the formation of water on earth, but also explain the formation of the earth itself.
Scientists largely agree that rocky planets like Earth formed out of the disk of dust and glass that surrounded our sun when it was young.
In this, ever-larger objects collided into each other, forming a larger and hotter ball that later became the Earth as we know it. The heat from the collisions and radioactive radiation slowly but surely turned the ball into a huge lake of lava.
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As it slowly cooled, the densest material warped inward, creating the layers of earth we know today: the metal core, the rocky core, the silicate mantle, and the crust.
So far, however, we have neglected the molecular hydrogen factor that researchers have discovered on exoplanets: “Exoplanet discoveries have given us a much greater understanding of how frequently newly formed planets are surrounded by atmospheres during their first few million years of growth that are rich in molecular hydrogen, H2,” Anat Shahar, one of the first authors of the study, told physics.
The scientists now suspect that such a mantle of molecular hydrogen could also have existed in the early years of the formation of the earth. This could explain why there is so much water here.
Using mathematical modelling, the researchers simulated how this molecular hydrogen in the atmosphere would interact with huge lava lakes. As a result, much of the hydrogen migrated into the metallic core, the mantle oxidized, and huge amounts of water were produced.
Based on this, the researchers suspect that the water on earth could have originated in this way. “This is just one possible explanation for our planet’s evolution, but one that would provide an important link between Earth’s formation history and the most commonly discovered exoplanets orbiting distant stars, called super-Earths and sub-Neptunes.” , concludes Shahar.
