Still a mystery?
I read something a short while back about how the earth's water could be explained by geological breakdown of rocks far beneath the earth's surface.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has discovered water on the asteroid Bennu less than a week after its arrival at the hunk of space rock. The journey to Bennu began over two years ago when OSIRIS-Rex left Earth, it has been chugging along since travelling 1.2 billion miles (2 billion kilometers) to get within 12 miles away from …
"I read something a short while back about how the earth's water could be explained by geological breakdown of rocks far beneath the earth's surface"
When the final story's told, the origin of the Earth's water will probably be from a mixture of internal geological sources supplemented by incoming water from comets, etc.
the next time one of my littles says 'awesome' I will make them;
a) read the definition of awesome in a dictionary
b) read this
c) read this again, until it sinks in
travel 1.2bn miles to reach out and touch something that could in parts be older than the solar system... ?
profoundly impressive.
"something that could in parts be older than the solar system"
If you go up to the asteroid display in the Natural History Museum in London they have a tiny bit of dust from the interstellar medium, which likely pre-dates the rest of our solar system. You can see it with your own eyes (but not touch it obviously).
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It's clearly explained in the Bible - it was God what done it. He caused it to rain an awful lot and opened the fountains of the deep.
If you're the kind of person who tries to rationalise the Bible you'll say that the rain was the cometary impacts and the fountains of the deep was all the water from below reaching the surface.
If you're the kind of person who is a bit more aware of the mindset of people who lived between five and three thousand years ago you'll say "quick thinking by priest in response to awkward question, probably from a five year old."
@Voyna: are you suggesting a group of people from 3000 plus years ago have been analysed by sociologists so you can say what their mindset was ? Or is that an assumption too? BTW, more than 3 Pacific Oceans worth of water is hypothesised to exist in just one part of the mantle. There may be more undiscovered. So far there seems to be significant water within Earth and for that matter, lunar rocks than the Theia or other Hadean hypotheses permit.
@ Spherical Cow
True, even Julius Caesar commented on the never ending rain. Be nice to get a load here to settle the dust. Believe me, soggy beats drought any time. When the eucalyptus start dying and wild birds come down from the mountains and turns up at the door demanding to be fed the Oz climate gets distressing.
The whole solar system was made from stuff older than it was, so no surprise that the left over bits are still older than the solar system.
A vanishingly small proportion of the current system could well be newer synthesised elements or particles from more recent supernovas or even sol itself.
Meep!
Interestingly, in response to another nutter claiming NASA faked the Moon landings, a Russian scientist who has analysed some of the rock brought back from the Moon has replied that as the rock samples are older than the Earth, it would have been easier simply to go to the Moon and get them than to fake them.