How did Earth get water? For decades, scientists have been conducting several studies to discover the origin of water on Earth. While several theories have been created to suggest the different methods water may have come into existence on Earth, a study seems to must have rewritten the theory of water on our home planet.
A new theory recently created by scientists strongly suggests that young Earth sucked up its water from space surrounding instead of water deposited on Earth by ice comets. Scientists strongly agree that this theory could have vital implications for the hunt for life in interstellar space as it suggests that habitable planets orbiting other stars may have followed the same style Earth deployed in sucking up water from space millions of years ago.
How Did Earth Get Water? Here’s How Scientists came up with the fascinating theory
So how did Earth get its water? Researchers conducted numerous studies to conduct on the new theory which suggests that tiny particles of dust would be sucked up by newborn planets around 4.5 billion years ago when our Sun was just a baby star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust popularly identified as a proto-planetary disk.
The study also revealed that baby Earth went through this process sucking up disk materials that supplied our planet with water. The scientists that conducted the studies marveled at the outcome of the study and that they made a satisfactory conclusion about their discovery.
“The disk also contains many icy particles. As the vacuum cleaner effect draws in the dust, it also captures a portion of the ice,” a team member and Ph.D. student at the Centre for Star and Planet Formation, University of Copenhagen, Isaac Onyett, said. “This process contributes to the presence of water during Earth’s formation, rather than relying on a chance event delivering water 100 million years later.”
University of Copenhagen geochemist and a member of the team behind the theory, Martin Schiller also made his suggestions about the newly concluded theory.
“People have debated how planets form for a long time,” Martin Schiller, said in a statement. “One theory is that planets are formed by the gradual collision of bodies, progressively increasing their size over 100 million years. In this scenario, the presence of water on Earth would need a sort of chance event.”
Why the Researchers Entrust Their New Theory
Releasing a new scientific theory like this actually comes with several studies and practical examples. The researchers used the possible bombardment of our planet with water-dropping icy comets during its final formation stage as a practical example to support their theory. Our home planet went through several formation processes. However, the final stage played a crucial role in the existence of water on Earth Day, based on this new theory.
“If that is how Earth was formed, then it is pretty lucky that we have water on Earth,” Schiller said. “This makes the chances that there is water on planets outside our solar system very low.”
The researchers concluded their new theory by deploying silicon isotopes as a gauge to estimate the measurement of the mechanisms of Earth’s formation and the timescale as well. The team studied the composition of isotopes in over 60 meteorites and other planetary bodies before establishing a connection between rocky planets such as Earth and other celestial bodies within the solar system. During the study, the researchers learned a lot that inspired them to create a new theory.
“This theory would predict that whenever you form a planet like Earth, you will have water on it,” team member and Globe Institute professor Martin Bizzarro said. “If you go to another planetary system where there is a planet orbiting a star the size of the sun, then the planet should have water if it is in the right distance.”
The team later published their findings in a paper on Wednesday (June 14) in the journal Nature. You can check that out to learn more about the new discovery.
Conclusion
A team of scientists recently conducted a satisfactory study to conclude that our planet sucked its water from its space environment. The researchers used silicon isotopes as a gauge to estimate the mechanisms of planet formation in over 60 meteorites and other planetary bodies. So how did Earth get water? Researchers used this fascinating new theory to explain how our infant planet got water billions of years ago.
