Mystery of where Earth's water came from deepens:

The mystery of where Earth's water came from got murkier Wednesday when some astronomers essentially eliminated one of the chief suspects: comets


Over the past few months, the European Space Agency's Rosetta space probe closely examined the type of comet that some scientists theorized could have brought water to our planet 4 billion years ago. It found water, but the wrong kind.

It was too heavy. One of the first scientific studies from the Rosetta mission found that the comet's water contains more of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium than water on Earth does.


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Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-mystery-earth-deepens.html#jCp

 

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Could it possibly be just a result of when the solar system had formed, and where exactly the comets came from and how long it took them to form?
And it does mention the possibility of Asteroids, which raises the question, that some of the Asteroids were comets to start off with, and that most of the comets will become plain old ordinary Asteroids in the future.

 

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This will need more review. Comets would preferentially lose heavy-water faster than regular water, leaving them somewhat enriched. That might be the problem.

I still like my idea better for solar system formation, as discussed in earlier threads. Earth formed much like Jupiter, et cetera, but then lost its H/He leaving only the heavier gases, i.e. water.

 

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Here is the situation:

• We have sampled insufficient comets
• We have sampled insufficient asteroids
• We have a very incomplete understanding of variations in composition related to position of formation.
• We have very incomplete understanding of the subsequent history and consequences for composition
• For comets we are assuming a uniformity of composition throughout the comet.

On that basis any pronouncement as to the source of Earth's water is premature.

 

Could be, but so would very hot recently condensed solid earth. The sun was about 30% cooler than now, when Earth got a hot solid core but still a weak source of harsh UV.

I'm no chemists, but guess any crystals with "water of hydration" tended to lose some H2O even before temperature cooled enough for water to condense. So high up, the harsh UV was splitting H2O and DOH. The H got on average same KE as the D so was going sq rt 2 faster - could climb out of the gravity well more often.

Thus the real mystery may be why is heavy water not more common on Earth than it is; or even than it is in the comets?
What is also hard (er?) to understand, is why so much oxygen on Earth's surface and in air and in non-hydrogen oxides?
Perhaps that has the same answer? O atoms have much lower velocity and rarely can climb out of the gravity well, even when high up in the air.

 

Actually, I believe it is believed that the young sun was a blue star, high in UV, like most young blue stars. Therefore, it is quite plausible that we lost the heavier water too.

But under the scenario I posited (and there are now massive gas planets in close solar orbit that have been found to support this), Earth at one time had a thick H/He blanket that eroded, leaving the heavier gases (i.e. H2O, CO2, NH3, etc.) to cool and liquify (for the H2O).

 

An Interesting concept and one I have thought about myself.
Jupiter is thought to have a rocky core about the size of Earth.
The planetary migration hypothesis does seem to be the most popular at this stage.

 

Generally it is thought to be about the mass of ten Earth's. Did you mean diameter? Even with the pressures involved I don't think that could reduce ten Earth masses to one Earth diameter.

 

Yep, about Earth's diameter.

 

...smelly did it. ;op

 

Seriously though, even if WHEN it rained was altered to flood the Earth, so lots of rain came at once, the fact remains that sometimes water just falls from the sky. Its a mystery. Quite beautiful!

Could it be condensation: the heat of the sun against the cold of Earth's atmosphere?

And some people do not beleive in miracles. *sighs*

 

That's a great name: h2o.

 

This is not about rain, there is no mystery about that. This is about the source of the water on earth which arrived billions of years ago.

 

Yes i know. It rained heavily and flooded the Earth.

 

Water has interesting physical properties, as we increase its temperature and pressure. Water becomes a very aggressive solvent for rocks and minerals as well as organic materials above its critical point. Water above its critical point or supercritical water (above 647 K and 22 atmospheres pressure) can dissolve almost any mineral/rock, especially silicates, and can turn organic compounds into CO2.

That being said, because of the heat and pressure within the crust, water can dissolve its way all the way into the mantle, once it reaches it critical point in the crust. It will follow the temperature and pressure gradients in the direction of higher pressure and higher temperature where it can dissolve more and more crust per unit of volume; direction of higher entropy.

Scientists have found a large ocean of water, in the mantle, below the crust in SE Asia, the size of the Arctic Ocean. Periodically, shifts in the crust will breech the crust, reducing the pressure load of the crust above such water deposits. This can change the direction of entropy. A large scar was found on the floor of the Atlantic ocean where the crust was eroded away exposing the mantle. The most logical explanation was sub mantle water bursting through the crust into the ocean. The pressure and flow eroded away a large section of the crust while adding to ocean salinity.

In such as scenario, the super hot water and steam, laden with dissolved minerals, will push upward bubbling to the surface. Minerals will precipitate out clouding the ocean. The surface of the ocean, at the breech would look like a huge constant tidal wave generator, with enormous plumes of vapor entering the atmosphere from the heat of the water.

The global atmosphere would become full of clouds, causing world wide rain, following the legions of tidal waves that erode all the coastline bordering the Atlantic Ocean. As the water leaves the mantle, the crust will now need to shift to offset hole and the pressure drop. The result will be the shifting of the crust, like a chain reaction. It would be the mother of all disasters with the impact felt world wide. Where tidal waves due to the water and the earthquakes add and come to a focus, the waves could reach sizes never seen before swamping land well inland.

 

Thats nothing compared to the moon swelling in the sky as it was created. This too caused worldwide natural disasters. The fear that must have gripped humanity must have caused a social disaster because the population must have thought the moon would eventually fall from the sky and crash into the Earth.

 

Non sense. In the short time humans have existed, the only observable change is the moon has been growing slightly dimmer as it slowly separates from earth. This change in 100 years (anyone's life) is tiny compared to the change in full moon intensity that regularly occurs every 6 months due to Earth/moon orbit not being exactly circular.

Strange is it not that the Chaos and "social disaster" you foolishly and ignorantly speak of does not happen every 6 months with this much greater change in the moon's intensity.

 

Thats because the moon has existed in the sky for so long we now know it will not fall from the sky. When it first swelled in appearance humanity did not know any better.

 

Not only did humans not exist when Earth got its moon, if they did they would be more than fried by the 18,000F surface temperature and molten rock rains. There have been about a dozen suggestions about how the Earth got its moon, but now all informed people believe the one discussed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Moon

Your many very ignorant posts will not get you banned - but do confirm you do have earned the "alternate PH. D" by Pilling Horseshit Deep.

 

I CREATED THE MOON!!! THAT'S ME YOU SEE IN THE SKY AT NIGHT!!!