A new study recently published in the journal Science intimates that a third of the Earth’s ocean water could have been sourced from ice in deep space which formed prior to the birth of the sun.
All of the planets in this solar system, actually, consist of space debris and other elements which have been floating through space for as long as the universe has been around—however long, exactly that could have been. It goes to argue, then, that ice from deep in space—much further out than the reaches of this solar system, eventually made it to this planet while it formed to develop into the oceans we know.
Scientists just have not been exactly sure how much of our water came from deep space ice and how much formed locally by the sun.
But that’s what this new study aimed to discern. So scientists at the University of Michigan built a model to determine the answer—based on a common scientific understanding of specific chemical circumstances that develop “heavy” water molecules which consist of a deuterium atom instead of hydrogen.
The model determined that maybe 1 out of every 3,000 water molecules on earth has a deuterium atom.
Basically about a third of all water in this planet is alien water.
“Our findings show that a significant fraction of our Solar System’s water, the most-fundamental ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which indicates that abundant, organic-rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all planetary systems.”
Conel Alexander, Carnegie Science Institute of Washington researcher
“If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars.”
“If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars.”
Water vapor has been spotted in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, roughly the size of Neptune. The alien world lies 124 light years from the Earth, and is the smallest planet ever observed with the vapor in its gaseous outer layer.
Astronomers examined the planet HAT-P-11b using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Kepler Space Telescope. They found water vapor present in the atmosphere surrounding the distant planet. If confirmed by other researchers, this world would be the smallest ever seen outside the Solar System to have measurable concentrations of atmospheric water vapor. The presence of the vapor suggests liquid water might exist on the surface, which could make the development of life there more likely.
The exoplanet was viewed as it passed in its orbit between the Earth and its own sun. Astronomers were able to study both the intensity of light, as well as gases in the atmosphere, twice during the crossing. First, as the planet passed over one rim of the star, then a second time, as it passed the other side. Absorption of light from hydrogen and oxygen revealed the presence of water vapor. This rare glimpse through the alien atmosphere showed clear skies, a rare sight in the study of exoplanets. Most alien worlds studied in this fashion have shown cloudy, murky atmospheres.
"It's the smallest planet that we've seen anything in the atmosphere besides clouds. The fact that it's clear at all is significant," Jonathan Fraine, astronomer at the University of Maryland, said.
Clouds may still exist in lower levels of the atmosphere, similar to the way the atmospheric features form on Earth.
On Neptune, a thick atmosphere of hydrogen, helium and methane surrounds an Earth-sized core covered in water ice, methane and ammonia. Life as we know it could not exist on the planet, due to frigid temperatures and crushing atmospheric pressures.
The planet HAT-P-11b has a mass 26 times greater than the Earth, although its diameter is just four times greater. Astronomers believe the planet began existence as a rocky or icy body, which slowly accumulated hydrogen and other gases in its atmosphere. The unusually clear skies could provide researchers the ability to study the surface of the world, identifying materials present on the surface of the exoplanet.
Björn Benneke of the California Institute of Technology, one of the researchers on the study, will continue investigation of other small exoplanets, looking for water vapor in their atmospheres.
Discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of HAT-P-11b was detailed in the journal Nature.
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