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So, where did the water on Mars come from?
The Toronto Star ^ | 3/7/04 | Terence Dickinson

Posted on 03/07/2004 2:21:58 AM PST by LibWhacker

The Mars rover Opportunity's examination of Martian rocks last week provided the first convincing evidence that our neighbour world was once "awash" in water, as one NASA scientist described it.

But where did the water come from? And why does Mars have no liquid water now, while Earth apparently has been covered with the stuff for 4 billion years?

Scientists are just beginning to piece the story together, and it goes right back to the beginning.

Mars, like Earth, was formed from dusty and rocky debris left over after the sun was born 4.57 billion years ago.

Initially, there were more planets in our solar system than the nine we recognize today, perhaps twice as many.

Earth suffered an especially brutal encounter with one of them 4.52 billion years ago, when a wayward body the size of Mars smashed into it. Our planet was almost split in two. Molten rock was splashed out into space and later condensed in orbit to form the moon.

The impact blasted the Earth's atmosphere into space, boiled off any water and turned our planet's surface into a sea of molten rock. Venus, Mercury and Mars, the other approximately Earth-sized planets, likely suffered similar collisions around the same time, though no large moons remain orbiting those worlds.

By 4.4 billion years ago, the Earth's surface had cooled enough to have a solid crust.

The formation of the planets was an inefficient process and for millions of years the Earth and the other planets were bombarded by what astronomers call planetesimals — essentially leftover chunks from the birth of the solar system, up to a few hundred kilometres in diameter.

By 3.9 billion years ago, the bombardment began to subside, but evidence for it is visible in binoculars when you look at the craters on the moon, the majority of which date from 3.9 billion to 4.4 billion years ago, when the planetesimals were raining down.

The puzzling part of this is that Earth's oceans, and now probably the water that was on Mars, both date from this period. Where did it come from?

The only reasonable answer is comets. Comets were formed farther out from the sun than Earth, but in such abundance that they also rained down in the early solar system.

They came into the inner solar system as frozen water — giant snowballs — depositing vast amounts of liquid water on Earth and apparently on Mars too.

Because of Earth's distance from the sun, our planet's surface temperature remains, on average, between the freezing and boiling points of water.

Moreover, Earth's atmosphere acts like a lid, trapping most of the moisture.

Mars, on the other hand, is too far from the sun to stay warm and too small to gravitationally trap a dense enough atmosphere to bottle up what warmth it does have.

The comet-fed oceans it likely had either escaped into space or ended up trapped in cold storage as permafrost.

To test these ideas, the Mars rovers will continue their explorations.

The comet part of the equation will be investigated this summer, when two comets float into Earth's sky in May.

They are expected to be bright enough to allow astronomers to examine them for further clues to the origin of water on Earth and Mars.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Terence Dickinson is editor of Skynews magazine and author of books for backyard astronomers.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: abiogenesis; bigsplash; biogenesis; catastrophism; chondrite; comet; comets; earlyearth; h2o; impact; louisafrank; louisfrank; mars; martiandesert; notsogreatflood; origin; originoflife; originofoceans; originoftheoceans; patrickhuyghe; smallcomets; tethysocean; thebigsplash; velikovsky; water
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1 posted on 03/07/2004 2:21:58 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker
To have been awash with water, Mars had to have two things, the needed temperature range and sufficient atmosphere.
2 posted on 03/07/2004 2:27:50 AM PST by cynicom
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To: LibWhacker
The puzzling part of this is that Earth's oceans, and now probably the water that was on Mars, both date from this period. Where did it come from?

The only reasonable answer is comets.

It is reasonable. Who first proposed comets as the source of Earth's water?

3 posted on 03/07/2004 2:37:08 AM PST by ngc6656 (Freepaholics Anonymous advisory: Don't freep and drive.)
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To: ngc6656
I first read about it in "The Big Splash" By Dr. Louis Frank (in part).
4 posted on 03/07/2004 2:49:36 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (As the oldest generation dies, the memory of liberty fades into obscurity, replaced by an impostor)
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To: ngc6656
Don't know. That's a fairly recent idea, isn't it?
5 posted on 03/07/2004 2:50:04 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: cynicom
To have been awash with water, Mars had to have two things, the needed temperature range and sufficient atmosphere.

It is hard to imagine Mars had bodies of water approaching the size of Earth's oceans. Thinking regionally, one can imagine the formation of temporary streams, ponds, lakes, perhaps even small seas as comets of various sizes collided with Mars.

6 posted on 03/07/2004 2:56:22 AM PST by ngc6656 (Freepaholics Anonymous advisory: Don't freep and drive.)
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To: ngc6656
Must have been a hell of a lot of comets to fill the oceans. Talk about bad weather . . .
7 posted on 03/07/2004 2:56:35 AM PST by Neanderthal
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To: LibWhacker
Martian lawn sprinklers.
8 posted on 03/07/2004 3:13:56 AM PST by bikerman
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To: LibWhacker
Now the question is, does Mars have enough water now to sustain a self contained colony.
9 posted on 03/07/2004 3:18:07 AM PST by Simmy2.5 (Kerry. When you need to ketchup...)
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To: ngc6656
Yep, I don't think there is much doubt that Mars was much a warmer place in the early Solar System, and probably had a much more substantial atmosphere as well.
10 posted on 03/07/2004 3:22:31 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker
I was always suspect of those evil hydrogen clouds roaming the galaxy but questioned which star system was hording all the oxygen clouds???
11 posted on 03/07/2004 3:27:15 AM PST by JoeSixPack1 (POW/MIA, Bring 'em home, NOW!)
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To: LibWhacker
in a word, GOD.
12 posted on 03/07/2004 3:27:24 AM PST by Joe Boucher (G.W. Bush in 2004)
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To: Smokin' Joe
Maybe Dr. Grafenberg knows.
13 posted on 03/07/2004 3:29:51 AM PST by Gazoo
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To: Simmy2.5
It'd be so cool if we could go there, drill down and hit vast reserves of fresh water. It could conceivably allow us to go there and stay for good.
14 posted on 03/07/2004 3:29:56 AM PST by LibWhacker
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To: Smokin' Joe; LibWhacker
A Google search turns up that Dr. Louis Frank proposed in the 1990s that Earth's atmosphere is continuously receiving water vapor as many small comets evaporate there. Other sites that turned up in the search allude to the decades old theory put forth by planetary scientists that Earth's oceans were the product of the impact of large comets.

Study of Comet Hale-Bopp revealed that most of its water is of the heavy type containing the heavier hydrogen isotope named deuterium. If Hale-Bopp was a typical large comet, why then doesn't our oceans contain greater amounts of heavy water, they point out. Investigations continue.

15 posted on 03/07/2004 4:03:33 AM PST by ngc6656 (Freepaholics Anonymous advisory: Don't freep and drive.)
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To: LibWhacker
But where did the water come from?

There is no water. Rather than ask where it came from why not first ask, where did it go?

16 posted on 03/07/2004 4:37:07 AM PST by MosesKnows
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To: LibWhacker
The impact blasted the Earth's atmosphere into space

Was there an atmosphere to blast into space? I thought the impact is what caused earth to have a moon and an atmosphere.

17 posted on 03/07/2004 4:40:44 AM PST by MosesKnows
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To: MosesKnows
Easy. The Bush administration destroyed the martian atmosphere and used all the water.
18 posted on 03/07/2004 5:19:09 AM PST by Crazieman
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To: LibWhacker
The formation of the planets was an inefficient process and for millions of years the Earth and the other planets were bombarded by what astronomers call planetesimals — essentially leftover chunks from the birth of the solar system, up to a few hundred kilometres in diameter.

Don't you just love moronic sentences like this?
19 posted on 03/07/2004 5:21:04 AM PST by aruanan
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To: LibWhacker
I find the article very interesting because I had never previously considered the question of where Earth's water came from. Guess I assumed it somehow occured here naturally, just like other compounds. What a strange notion to imagine it came from comets.

But when you look at the vast oceans, is it really possible that all that water comes from melted comets? I really can't believe that. Are there other scientific theories, in particular ones that envision that water was somehow created on Earth?
20 posted on 03/07/2004 5:21:07 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
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