Comet surprise: Did the sea come from the sky?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/October/international_October199.xml§ion=international

Comet surprise: Did the sea come from the sky?

(AFP)

6 October 2011

PARIS — Much of Earth’s oceans may have been created by comets, which whacked into the infant planet billions of years ago, bringing precious loads of ice, a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature suggests.

The evidence to support this comes from a signature of the ratio of heavy hydrogen, or deuterium, in water.

Ice on a comet called 103P/Hartley 2, analysed by an infrared instrument aboard Europe’s Herschel space telescope as it swung by Earth in October and November 2010, has the same deuterium ratio as water on Earth.

Primal leftovers from the building of the Solar System, comets are mixtures of ice and dust that have been dubbed “dirty snowballs.”

[WinkyDink]

1. I can go with this theory!

[YellowCosmicSun]

2. How else did the water get here?

[Chemisse]

3. I think steam from under the earth's crust as the molten earth cooled off

was the theory, which was thought to have risen into the early atmosphere then come down in torrential rains, filling the low points of the globe.

[YellowCosmicSun]

10. But where did the steam come from? molten rock doesn't just turn into water.

The original source is what we're looking for.

[sakabatou]

4. Comets and water-bearing asteroids were the ones that caused it

[pintobean]

5. This theory has been around for a while.

I saw it on one of Discovery's channels a few years ago.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. I actually thought it was settled theory..

:shrug:

[msongs]

6. volume of water delivered = a lot of comets for all that water nt

[YellowCosmicSun]

11. Perhaps the body that collided with the Earth to form the Moon had water?

[Matariki]

7. Okay. Does that explain how fish got into mountain lakes?

[immoderate]

9. BIG splash!

--imm

[Angry Dragon]

12. You remember that big flood, right??

[Swede]

13. A great way to acquify Mars and warm it up,drop comets on it.

Hey,why not?

[Duer 157099]

14. Then, statistically, every planet the same distance from their star

as earth is from the sun, should have as much water as we have, plus or minus allowing for atmospheric differences etc.

The universe should be full of life.