The abundance of water available on Earth is one of the main reasons why it is often referred to as the 'Blue Planet'. With nearly 70% of the planet's surface being covered with water, scientists have always wondered about its origins and shared several arguable theories. While some scientists claimed water's origin to be extraterrestrial, a group of British scientists have come up with a new theory backing up the theory.
According to the latest study published in Nature Astronomy, Earth's surface was waterless until a series of ice asteroids/comets rained down on the planet, resulting in 332,500,000 cubic miles of water. The group of British scientists studied grains of materials obtained from the 25143 Itokawa asteroid which was brought to Earth by a Japanese robot probe. And during their research, they found a significant amount of water in the asteroid, hinting at the presence of water in the form of ice on other planets.
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The newly found results helped the scientists to come to a conclusion that the water on Earth's surface is mostly a result of solar winds. Furthermore, the group even suggested that the dust particles present in the solar winds which came from the Sun must have interacted with the oxygen atoms present in the clouds over the years, resulting in the massive volume of water on Earth.
Luke Daly, who was a part of the research team said, "The dust we have studied provides good evidence that our oceans were created from water that came from other parts of the solar system. It suggests that at least half the water we have on Earth filtered down from interplanetary dust."
In addition to Daly's point, Professor Martin Lee also pointed out, that apart from solar winds, ice comets/asteroids that ended up on Earth's surface also contributed. "In combination, solar dust and icy comets provided us with the oceans in which life evolved," Lee said in the press release.
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