Water Came To Earth With Formation Of The Moon

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – In their new research, planetologists at the University of Münster, Germany show that water came to Earth with the formation of the Moon some 4.4 billion years ago.

The Moon was formed when Earth was hit by a body about the size of Mars, also called Theia that comes from the outer solar system, and it delivered large quantities of water to Earth.

The Earth formed in the ‘dry’ inner solar system, and so it is somewhat surprising that there is water on Earth.

From earlier studies, we know that the solar system became structured such that the ‘dry’ materials were separated from the ‘wet’ materials: the so-called ‘carbonaceous‘ meteorites, which are relatively rich in water, come from the outer solar system, whereas the drier ‘non-carbonaceous’ meteorites come from the inner solar system.

“We have used molybdenum isotopes to answer this question. The molybdenum isotopes allow us to clearly distinguish carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous material, and as such represent a ‘genetic fingerprint’ of material from the outer and inner solar system,” Dr. Gerrit Budde of the Institute of Planetology in Münster and lead author of the study, said in a press release.

The measurements made by the researchers from Münster show that the molybdenum isotopic composition of the Earth partly originated in the outer solar system. The chemical properties of molybdenum play a key role because, as it is an iron-loving element, most of the Earth’s molybdenum is located in the core.

“The molybdenum which is accessible today in the Earth’s mantle, therefore, originates from the late stages of Earth’s formation, while the molybdenum from earlier phases is entirely in the core,” explains Dr. Christoph Burkhardt, second author of the study.

The study shows that carbonaceous material from the outer solar system arrived on Earth late. Further, the scientists show that Theia itself also originated from the outer solar system, since a large part of the molybdenum in Earth’s mantle originates from the outer solar system

According to the scientists, the collision provided sufficient carbonaceous material to account for the entire amount of water on Earth.

“Our approach is unique because, for the first time, it allows us to associate the origin of water on Earth with the formation of the Moon. To put it simply, without the Moon there probably would be no life on Earth,” says Thorsten Kleine, Professor of Planetology at the University of Münster

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Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer