Rosetta results: Comets 'did not bring water to Earth'

Having read the article, I think it is too soon for such a bold headline. Maybe it should read 'Comets possibly did not bring water to Earth.'

Scientists have dealt a blow to the theory that most water on Earth came from comets. Results from Europe's Rosetta mission, which made history by landing on Comet 67P in November, shows the water on the icy mass is unlike that on our planet. The results are published in the journal Science.

I don't know about the idea of asteroids bringing all the water to Earth, there would have to be quite a few to have done that I would imagine.

However, Prof Altwegg believes that Kuiper Belt comets did not bring water to Earth. She said: "The conclusion here is that in the reservoir of the Kuiper Belt, we have very diverse comets that probably came from different regions of the early Solar System. "We have light water in some comets and very heavy water in other comets. We have to assume the mixture of all these comets is something that is heavier than what we have on Earth, so this probably rules out Kuiper Belt comets as the source of terrestrial water." Instead, she thinks that asteroids - dense, rocky objects that formed closer to the Sun than comets - seeded our oceans. She said: "We know already something about the characteristic of asteroids by studying meteorites, which are pieces of asteroids - and the characteristics of asteroids are very much like our water. "They are also much closer to the Earth, so it is more likely that they hit the Earth than the very distant comets, which are beyond Neptune."

Still, it's not everyday that we take a step towards having to revisit long held beliefs and would bring about a change in what is being taught in schools and colleges, if indeed Comets did not bring water to Earth.

Source:- www.bbc.co.uk...

Why couldn't the water have been trapped in the debris that formed the earth from the get go. If they dig down there is a whole ocean worth of water trapped in minerals.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes, I did think about that, but the Earth was a big ball of fire, so any water would have evaporated wouldn't it? Unless it was trapped in a coating of asbestos or some other heat resisting material? I genuinely do not know if it is a feasible theory.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes, I did think about that, but the Earth was a big ball of fire, so any water would have evaporated wouldn't it? Unless it was trapped in a coating of asbestos or some other heat resisting material? I genuinely do not know if it is a feasible theory.

And yet the water's here, so it had to come from somewhere eh? A lot of promising theories as to the origin of water on earth, but most forget that water is simply hydrogen and oxygen atoms bound together. Hydrogen being the most abundant element in the universe, oxygen being the third.
I've seen various attempts to simulate a comet or asteroid impact with Earth, and at the point of collision, it gets hot enough to cook up all sorts of molecules.

www.universetoday.com...

The water vapor is just one of many kinds of gas that surround the quasar, and its presence indicates that the quasar is bathing the gas in both X-rays and infrared radiation. The interaction between the radiation and water vapor reveals properties of the gas and how the quasar influences it. For example, analyzing the water vapor shows how the radiation heats the rest of the gas. Furthermore, measurements of the water vapor and of other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, suggest that there is enough gas to feed the black hole until it grows to about six times its size. Whether this will happen is not clear, the astronomers say, since some of the gas may end up condensing into stars or may be ejected from the quasar.

Of course black holes are only theories.

www.space.com...

Scientists have detected water vapor in the spinning disks that surround two newly formed stars, where planets are born.

Its not comets its stars that produce the elements and even spew out planets.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

Not sure where it came from but all you need to make water is free hydrogen, oxygen and ignition.

So maybe when the sun reached critical mass the shockwave water'd all the free gas hanging around?

What do I know though?

I'm failing to see any relevance for the layman.

Comets didn't bring water to Earth...it was asteroids.

Fine.

Some big rocks with water inside crashed into Earth millions of years ago...

originally posted by: CJCrawley
I'm failing to see any relevance for the layman.

Comets didn't bring water to Earth...it was asteroids.

Fine.

Some big rocks with water inside crashed into Earth millions of years ago...

The likelihood is, it was neither. So......

its just another fact they thought happened and yet it now seems that they were wrong with that one as well,when will people actually accept that just cause they say it is then it just not mite be?

accept the fact that no one really knows what is out there and we,ll all be long gone when they actually figure it out.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes, I did think about that, but the Earth was a big ball of fire, so any water would have evaporated wouldn't it? Unless it was trapped in a coating of asbestos or some other heat resisting material? I genuinely do not know if it is a feasible theory.

The mineral inside the Earth that is holding the water is called Ringwoodite and yes it's pretty robust under heat and pressure. Current estimates are that Ringwoodite crystals in the interior of the Earth hold three times the amount of water found at the surface in all of the oceans combined.

Massive Ocean Discovered Towards Earth's Core

Whichever theory of the source of the water we go with will need to account for the vast amounts of water found on other bodies in the solar system, such as Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto and even our own Moon, all of which have substantial amounts of water.

originally posted by: Chronon

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes, I did think about that, but the Earth was a big ball of fire, so any water would have evaporated wouldn't it? Unless it was trapped in a coating of asbestos or some other heat resisting material? I genuinely do not know if it is a feasible theory.

The mineral inside the Earth that is holding the water is called Ringwoodite and yes it's pretty robust under heat and pressure. Current estimates are that Ringwoodite crystals in the the interior of the Earth hold three times the amount of water found at the surface in all of the oceans combined.

Massive Ocean Discovered Towards Earth's Core

Whichever theory of the source of the water we go with will need to account for the vast amounts of water found on other bodies in the solar system, such as Mars, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto and even our own Moon, all of which have substantial amounts of water.

Thanks for posting that, very interesting.

So it could well have been present in the rocks that crashed together to form the Earth and Earth's position in the Solar system is the biggest contributor to life being present?

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
a reply to: Chronon

Thanks for posting that, very interesting.

So it could well have been present in the rocks that crashed together to form the Earth and Earth's position in the Solar system is the biggest contributor to life being present?

The current estimate is that 50% of the water on Earth existed before the birth of the Sun. The theory holds that if the water (or ice) was already here from a time before the Sun, then it may have been a component of the planetary disk of dust and rock from which the Earth was formed, that water was part of the planetary building materials from the start.

Earth’s water is older than the Sun

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 young planetary systems

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes, I did think about that, but the Earth was a big ball of fire, so any water would have evaporated wouldn't it? Unless it was trapped in a coating of asbestos or some other heat resisting material? I genuinely do not know if it is a feasible theory.

Not really.. the water trapped nearer the Earths core is under such extreme temps and pressure you'd think the pressure would cause a steam explosion and tear the planet apart. Considering there are at least 1-2 world's oceans worth of water down there. I think it seems plausible that since Water is made of two extremely common elements, that the position of Earth during its formation happened to capture a significant deal of water, which existed as steam within our atmosphere, and as mineral deposits that would have eventually been expelled as steam over the eons when the earth was more volcanically active.

I'm not sure why the comet theory ever got traction .. if planets are seeded with water via comets, wouldn't it make sense that most planets have significant stores of water/ice? Yes they don't, where as Earth is a giant sponge.

a reply to: Rockpuck