Moontanman Posted February 7, 2014 Report Share Posted February 7, 2014 I was under the impression that at lest some science backs up the idea that the collision that formed the moon kept the earth from being a mini neptune or at least a world with oceans and no land. I'm not sure where i got that, I'll have to look it up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 (edited) Seeing as the Earth initially formed through the coalescence or the same stuff orbiting the juvenile sun that resulted in the comets, I fail to see the problem. Ultimately, the water in the comets, the water in the above-mentioned interplanetary dust particles and the water in the Earth's seas all come from the same source - the first generation star that preceded our sun in this neck of the woods blew up and burped a lot of crap, among which oxygen, into space. And eventually that oxygen found its way to stray hydrogen floating around that either survived the first-generation star's explosion or was captured from an interstellar hydrogen cloud. And vóila - water. THAT's where our water comes from. Comets or interplanetary dust particles are merely intermediary steps that could contribute, but they're nothing more than middlemen in the process, because they originally got their water from the same source. The 'problem' -if we want to call it that- is working out the mysteries of the process(es). In the case of this thread's OP, those processes peculiar/specific to Earth's abundant water. Science for science's sake don't ya know. :smart: Edited February 11, 2014 by Turtle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boerseun Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 Let's say the water came from comets. Then, the logical next question would be, where do the comets come from? From the stuff dumped into space by the sun's predecessor. Let's say a comet made it to the surface. Some of it must have boiled off in the atmosphere on the way down. Some of the water blown off into the atmosphere upon the comet's violent (and hot) entry before impact will make a cloud which will eventually find its way to the surface in the form of rain, many miles away. So you come upon a puddle and ask yourself where the water in the puddle came from. From a cloud, you would say. And you will be right. But where did the cloud come from? From a comet. The cloud was merely the middleman in the process. The same argument would hold if you were to ask where the bulk of the water came from. From a comet. Sure. Welling up from the interior? Sure. But both the interior water supply and cometary water injections are merely middlemen, the cloud in the previous analogy. Ultimately they come from the same source. Science for science's sake is all fair and good. But I really fail to see the problem. Some of the water in the ocean must have come from comets. And some of the water in the oceans must have welled up from inside the young planet. And some of the water must have come from... you get the picture. With all the crap falling out of the sky (today, still) and all the gunk boiling up from Earth's interior (once again, today, still), there is no conceivable way in which any of the proposed sources can claim exclusivity. The best thing you can hope for is to calculate percentages in order to say that this percentage came from this source, and that percentage came from that source. And the only way to get a handle on those figures would be to analyse the chemical makeup of the crap flying around in the debris clouds of congealing systems that might be representative of the early solar system - the debris cloud formed by the first generation star that blew up, supplying the matter that made up the solar system, which is the ultimate source of both cometary and underground water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted February 11, 2014 Report Share Posted February 11, 2014 ... Science for science's sake is all fair and good. But I really fail to see the problem. ... Erhm... I don't get why you keep dismissing the issue of studying, experimenting, researching, and in all ways actually doing the science. It is after all those things that have informed you of the general situation with which you dismiss the specifics. I revived this old thread because new knowledge has come to the front on how Earth -and other terrestrial planets- can receive water as well as other organic molecules. (That being through the action of solar radiation(s) on interstellar space dust.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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