comet surprise did the sea come from the sky
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

"dirty snowballs"

Comet surprise: Did the sea come from the sky

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today Comet surprise: Did the sea come from the sky

A close-up view of the comet Hartley 2 is seen during a NASA mission in 2010
Paris - AFP

A close-up view of the comet Hartley 2 is seen during a NASA mission in 2010 Much of Earth's oceans may have been created by comets, which whacked into the infant planet billions of years ago, bringing precious loads of ice, a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests. The evidence to support this comes from a signature of the ratio of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in water.
Ice on a comet called 103P/Hartley 2, analysed by an infrared instrument aboard Europe's Herschel space telescope as it swung by Earth in October and November 2010, has the same deuterium ratio as water on Earth.
Primal leftovers from the building of the Solar System, comets are mixtures of ice and dust that have been dubbed "dirty snowballs."
They are lonely wanderers, looping around the Sun in orbits that are measured in a years or sometimes centuries, although a tiny gravitational tug by a nearby body can deflect their course.
Astrophysicists have long puzzled over the source for Earth's water.
Earth was so scorchingly hot in its early years that all volatiles, including water, evaporated.
Water, 3.9 billion years ago, would only have existed in abundance in the chillier outer regions of the Solar System.
This is why fingers have until now pointed in the direction of asteroids -- rocks that orbit in a belt between Mars and Jupiter -- as the big source.
"Current theories came to the result that less than 10 percent of Earth's water originated from comets," said Paul Hartogh of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, who led the study.
"For the first time, our results imply that comets may have played a much more important role," his colleague, Miriam Rengel, added.
The icy bombardment would have occurred some eight million years after Earth was formed.
Hartley 2 is probably traceable to comets that originated in the Kuiper Belt, which starts in the region of Pluto, says the paper.
Six other comets measured by Herschel in recent years have very different deuterium ratios. They are believed to have originated from the far distant Oort Cloud, which is 5,000 times farther out from the Sun.
"Life could not exist on Earth without liquid water, and so the questions of how and when the oceans got here is a fundamental one," said Ted Bergin, a University of Michigan astronomer who took part in the probe.
"It's a big puzzle, and these new findings are an important piece."
Comets also play a role in the theory known as "panspermia," in which life, or the chemical building blocks for it, was brought to the newborn Earth by space rocks.

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

comet surprise did the sea come from the sky comet surprise did the sea come from the sky

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

comet surprise did the sea come from the sky comet surprise did the sea come from the sky

 



GMT 06:46 2017 Wednesday ,04 October

Pope to bless icon for Holy Family Journey to Egypt

GMT 15:51 2017 Tuesday ,22 August

FVP informed on arrangements for Sudan in meetings

GMT 04:55 2016 Monday ,03 October

Alec Baldwin nails it as Trump on ‘SNL’

GMT 21:15 2017 Tuesday ,19 September

Security forces intensify their presence in Kirkuk

GMT 03:39 2017 Saturday ,30 September

Al Jawaheri economic improvement

GMT 10:29 2018 Saturday ,06 January

Siniora meets German Ambassador

GMT 06:27 2017 Tuesday ,26 December

Embassy in Russia marks National Days

GMT 19:06 2017 Thursday ,05 January

Moral policing in Maharashtra, too

GMT 11:49 2017 Wednesday ,26 April

OIC Condemns Attack on Military Base in Afghanistan

GMT 18:35 2017 Monday ,27 February

UK foreign secretary leaves Egypt
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday