New Study Challenges Theory of Earth’s Water Origin: Was It Here All Along?
For years, the prevailing scientific theory suggested that Earth's water arrived via asteroid bombardment in its early formation. However, a groundbreaking new study is challenging this notion, suggesting that Earth may have possessed the ingredients for water since its inception. This could rewrite our understanding of planetary formation and habitability.
The study, published in the journal Icarus, focuses on enstatite chondrites, a rare type of meteorite with a chemical composition similar to the early Earth. Researchers from the University of Oxford analyzed a specimen called LAR 12252, discovered in Antarctica, using advanced X-ray absorption spectroscopy at the Diamond Light Source facility.
The key discovery? The meteorite contained significant amounts of hydrogen sulfide within its fine-grained matrix. Importantly, this hydrogen appears to be of internal origin, not a result of contamination after the meteorite landed on Earth.
"Since it is unlikely to have originated on Earth, this research strongly supports the idea that water on Earth is ancient - a result of the material from which the planet was formed," said Tom Barrett, the study's lead author.
This finding contradicts the traditional view that early Earth was dry and required external sources, like asteroids, to deliver hydrogen (a key component of water). The research suggests that the Earth's building blocks already contained sufficient hydrogen to create water.
Alessandro Morbidelli, who studies planet formation at Collège de France in Paris, notes that the likelihood of water delivery by asteroids is low, due to dependencies on the solar system's specific geometry. This new finding further challenges that theory.
James Bryson, a planetary scientist at the University of Oxford, said a fundamental question for planetary scientists is how Earth became as we know it today. "We now believe that the material from which it formed - which we can study in rare meteorites like these - was significantly richer in hydrogen than we previously thought," he added.
However, some scientists remain cautious. Conel Alexander, a meteoriticist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, points out that enstatite chondrites are prone to contamination from water on Earth. He suggests that a freshly fallen enstatite chondrite, collected and analyzed in a water-free environment, would provide more conclusive evidence.
The implications of this research extend beyond Earth. If rocky planets can naturally form with the necessary hydrogen, it suggests that water, and potentially habitable conditions, might be more common in the universe than previously estimated. This shifts the focus of planetary habitability studies, suggesting that water may be a natural outcome of planetary formation. This could mean that Mars and Venus might also have trapped water during earlier formations.
Could Earth's water have been here all along? This study opens up exciting new avenues of research and prompts us to reconsider the origins of our planet and the potential for life elsewhere in the cosmos.
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