Comet discovered with ocean-like water inside of it

Where Earth got its sea is a self-aggrandising question , and the currently preferred explanation is that ancient comets brought in immense amounts of water system from the outer solar organisation . That hypothesis just received some big evidence to back it up .

The current model holds that Earth ’s ocean began to form about eight million years after the rest of the major planet – not a lot of time on a geological scale , but enough to propose that a distinct unconscious process was need . scientist hypothesize an off - world germ for all that piddle , and ancient asteroid have generally been the centering of these investigations . But scientists have also considered comets as a possible other seed for Earth ’s sea .

Now , research worker at the University of Michigan have found some prominent evidence to back up that estimation . Analysis of the comet Hartley 2 by the Herschel Space Observatory has revealed that the water freeze inside the comet has just the same chemical composition as the water on Earth . Specifically , it has the same proportion of hydrogen and heavy hydrogen – a hydrogen isotope with a neutron in it – as the water system found in our sea .

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We ’ve never found ocean - like water in a comet before , and the scientist speculate that this particular comet originated in a different place than most other comet we see . This one , they suggest , hail from the Kuiper Belt , the dance band of material just beyond Neptune in which Pluto is found , while most other comet occur from the far more distant sphere of tilt and dust known as the Oort Cloud . That may entail that a luck more comet formed in the Kuiper Belt in the solar system ’s early days , and these are the one that carried a important chunk of our current water provision to Earth .

ViaNature . Image of Hartley Comet via NASA .

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