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Water is essential for life on Earth and is one of our most precious natural resources. But considering how our planet formed, it is quite surprising how much water we still have. The Earth aggregated from a cloud of gas and dust – a protoplanetary diskAsteroid sample sheds light on how Earth got its water
Water is essential for life on Earth and is one of our most precious natural resources. But considering how our planet formed, it is quite surprising how much water we still have. The Earth aggregated from a cloud of gas and dust – a protoplanetary disk – and was incandescently hot for the first few million years. Its surface was kept molten by impacts from comets and asteroids. Earth’s interior was also (and still is) kept liquid by a combination of gravitational heating and the decay of radioactive isotopes. That means that if there were any initial water (and organic compounds) on the Earth, it should have boiled off quickly. So how come there’s plenty of water on our planet today – where did it actually come from? A surprising new study, published in Science Advances, suggests that a type of asteroid we didn’t think contained very much water could be responsible – simultaneously demonstrating that the solar system is probably a lot wetter than had previously been thought. Scientists have long debated exactly where the Earth’s water comes from. One theory suggests that it might have been captured from the asteroids and comets that collided with it. Another argues that water... Read more











