Font
Size

Earth water came from space

22.10.2011 23:45

The Herschel Observatory discovered in an interesting area close to a
star; a finding that may help explain the origin of water on Earth...

by Alessandro Greco

The origin of the planet's water has been the
subject of long debate among scientists. Currently, it is believed that it came
to Earth via impacts with comets and asteroids during the formation of the Solar
System.

An article published on Thursday (20th) in the
journal Science found that there is plenty of water spread outside the
solar system, confirming the hypothesis that it "landed" on earth thanks to
these celestial bodies. "Our results show that there are substantial reservoirs
of water frozen in systems that form planets, and consequently had the same kind
of situation during the formation of the Solar System."

The finding supports the hypothesis that the
Earth's oceans arrived by the impact of celestial bodies," said Michiel
Hogerheijde of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, lead author of the
study. He added: "It is likely that worlds covered by oceans exist throughout
the universe."

With the data collected, the researchers were
also able to estimate that the size of the reservoir of water is thousands of
times greater than all the oceans on Earth.

Translated from the Portuguese verion
by:

Lisa Karpova

Pravda.Ru

Lisa Karpova

Copyright © 1999-2011, «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole
or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the
authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's
editors.