Oceans are as old as the Earth: New study finds meteorites brought water as our planet was forming - and raises prospect life may have formed earlier that we thought
- Find could mean life began very early on Earth
- Brought to the forming Earth by the most primitive known meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites
- Previously thought planet formed dry - and a comet brought water
Is is one of the great mysteries of our planet.
Earth
is known as the Blue Planet because of its oceans, which cover more
than 70 percent of the planet's surface and are home to the world's
greatest diversity of life.
However, until now, we have not known how - or when - water arrived on Earth.
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Water on Earth came, not from a comet,
but from meteorites - and arrived at the same time the planet's rock
was forming, researchers have claimed.
HOW THEY DID IT
Researchers used meteorite samples provided by NASA from the asteroid 4-Vesta.
The asteroid 4-Vesta, which formed in the same region of the solar system as Earth, has a surface of basaltic rock—frozen lava.
These
basaltic meteorites from 4-Vesta are known as eucrites and carry a
unique signature of one of the oldest hydrogen reservoirs in the solar
system.
The
measurements show that 4-Vesta contains the same hydrogen isotopic
composition as carbonaceous chondrites, the most primitive known
meteorites, which is also that of Earth.
That, combined with nitrogen isotope data, points to carbonaceous chondrites as the most likely common source of water.
Now
researchers say they have a solution - water came, not from a comet,
but from meteorites - and arrived at the same time the planet's rock was
forming.
'The
answer to one of the basic questions is that our oceans were always
here,' said Adam Sarafian of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the
lead author of the paper in the journal Science.
While
some hypothesized that water came late to Earth, well after the planet
had formed, the new study significantly moves back the clock for the
first evidence of water on Earth and in the inner solar system.
'One
school of thought was that planets originally formed dry, due to the
high-energy, high-impact process of planet formation, and that the water
came later from sources such as comets or 'wet' asteroids, which are
largely composed of ices and gases,' said Sarafian.
'With
giant asteroids and meteors colliding, there's a lot of destruction,'
said Horst Marschall, a geologist at WHOI and coauthor of the paper.
'Some
people have argued that any water molecules that were present as the
planets were forming would have evaporated or been blown off into space,
and that surface water as it exists on our planet today, must have come
much, much later—hundreds of millions of years later.'
The study's authors turned to another potential source of Earth's water to solve the problem.
The
most primitive known meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, were formed
in the same swirl of dust, grit, ice and gasses that gave rise to the
sun some 4.6 billion years ago, well before the planets were formed.
'These primitive meteorites resemble the bulk solar system composition,' said WHOI geologist and coauthor Sune Nielsen.
'They have quite a lot of water in them, and have been thought of before as candidates for the origin of Earth's water.'
In this
illustration of the early solar system, the dashed white line represents
the snow line -- the transition from the hotter inner solar system,
where water ice is not stable (brown) to the outer Solar system, where
water ice is stable (blue). Two possible ways that the inner solar
system received water are: water molecules sticking to dust grains
inside the 'snow line' (as shown in the inset) and carbonaceous
chondrite material flung into the inner solar system by the effect of
gravity from protoJupiter. With either scenario, water must accrete to
the inner planets within the first ca. 10 million years of solar system
formation.
In
order to determine the source of water in planetary bodies, scientists
measure the ratio between the two stable isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium
and hydrogen.
Different regions of the solar system are characterized by highly variable ratios of these isotopes.
The
study's authors knew the ratio for carbonaceous chondrites and reasoned
that if they could compare that to an object that was known to
crystallize while Earth was actively accreting then they could gauge
when water appeared on Earth.
To
test this hypothesis, the research team, which also includes Francis
McCubbin from the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New
Mexico and Brian Monteleone of WHOI, utilized meteorite samples provided
by NASA from the asteroid 4-Vesta.
The asteroid 4-Vesta, which formed in the same region of the solar system as Earth, has a surface of basaltic rock—frozen lava.
These
basaltic meteorites from 4-Vesta are known as eucrites and carry a
unique signature of one of the oldest hydrogen reservoirs in the solar
system.
An implication of that is that life on our planet could have started to begin very early
Their
age—approximately 14 million years after the solar system formed—makes
them ideal for determining the source of water in the inner solar system
at a time when Earth was in its main building phase.
The
researchers analyzed five different samples at the Northeast National
Ion Microprobe Facility—a state-of-the-art national facility housed at
WHOI that utilizes secondary ion mass spectrometers. This is the first
time hydrogen isotopes have been measured in eucrite meteorites.
The
measurements show that 4-Vesta contains the same hydrogen isotopic
composition as carbonaceous chondrites, which is also that of Earth.
That, combined with nitrogen isotope data, points to carbonaceous
chondrites as the most likely common source of water.
'The
study shows that Earth's water most likely accreted at the same time as
the rock. The planet formed as a wet planet with water on the surface,'
Marschall said.
While
the findings don't preclude a late addition of water on Earth, it shows
that it wasn't necessary since the right amount and composition of
water was present at a very early stage.
'An implication of that is that life on our planet could have started to begin very early,' added Nielsen.
'Knowing
that water came early to the inner solar system also means that the
other inner planets could have been wet early and evolved life before
they became the harsh environments they are today.'
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