A Japanese space probe collected samples from an asteroid and they suggest that the water on Earth may have been created by the sun.
A new study suggests that the water may have rained on the Earth in the form of dust grains produced by the interaction of the solar wind.
The solar winds are streams of mostly hydrogen and helium ion which flow from the sun out into space. When hydrogen ion hits an airless surface like an asteroid or a spaceborne dust particle, they penetrate a few tens of nanometers below the surface, where they can affect the chemical composition of the rock.
The TRAPPIST-1 solar system was not bombarded by rocks like early Earth.
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Oxygen atoms can be ejected from materials in the rock to create water, which remains locked within the asteroid.
This mechanism may be the missing link in explaining the abundance and chemical composition of water on Earth. 70% of the planet is covered in water. That is more than any other planet in the solar system. None of the theories can fully explain it. A dominant view suggests that asteroids rich in carbon delivered water to the planet.
The chemical analysis of carbonaceous chondrites, which are chunks of these carbon-rich asteroids, revealed that the water locked inside them doesn't match the chemical fingerprints of Earth's water.
Researchers believe that there must be at least one additional source of life-giving liquid because of the discrepancy in what scientists call the isotopic composition. The number of un charged neutrons in a form of chemical elements is what determines their composition. Earth's hydrogen is mostly a lighter form called protium that has no neutrons, while the carbonaceous chondrites have water with more deuterium.
The team of researchers analyzed the composition of a rocky type of asteroid using a novel technique called atom probe tomography. The researchers measured the atomic structure of the grains one atom at a time. The asteroid Itokawa was visited by the Japanese probe Hayabusa, which delivered tiny pieces of this space rock to Earth in 2010.
A fragment of an asteroid. The University of Glasgow has an image.
"Our technique allows us to take an incredibly detailed look inside the first 50 nanometers, or so of the surface of the dust grains on Itokawa, which are covered in 18 month cycles." It allowed us to see that the fragment of space-weathered rim contained enough water that it would take about 20 liters of water for every 35 feet of rock.
Bland said that the particles produced in the interaction of Itokawa's dust and the solar wind had more of the lighter form of hydrogen than the carbon-rich asteroids.
Bland said that the source of the missing water could be the fine-grained dust buffeted by the solar wind.
The research isn't limited to Earth. The researchers said in the statement that the water may be locked in the surface rocks of the moon and asteroids. It could be good news for future human exploration in deep space, as necessary supplies might be easier to find than scientists fear.
"One of the problems of future human space exploration is how astronauts will find enough water to keep them alive and accomplish their tasks without carrying it with them on their journey," Hope Ishii, a seismologist at the University of Hawai'i at Mnoa and also a co
The same space weathering process which created the water on Itokawa will have happened on many airless worlds. That could mean that space explorers can process water from the dust on the planet's surface.
The research is described in the journal Nature Astronomy.
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