• Question: Does that mean that some of the water on earth is ffrom space?

    Asked by 534erbb42 to Tom on 18 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Thomas Barrett

      Thomas Barrett answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Yes!
      Technically everything on Earth is from space as it all formed from the same material as the rest of the solar system when the solar system began. So when we say that Earth and asteroids have the same water it is likely that they formed in the same place. Comets on the other hand have a different water ‘finger print’ (we use the isotope ratio of hydrogen to deuterium (which makes heavy water) to work this out) so they must formed in a different part of the solar system.

      Some people however believe that we can’t account for why the Earth is so wet based on what material it should have formed on. They think that asteroids or comets containing a lot of water must have hit the Earth early on during its formation to add this extra bit of water.

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