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Comet's water 'like that of Earth's oceans'
BBC ^ | October 5, 2011 | Jason Palmer

Posted on 10/05/2011 6:41:44 PM PDT by decimon

Comet Hartley 2 contains water more like that found on Earth than prior comets seem to have, researchers say.

A study using the Herschel space telescope aimed to measure the quantity of deuterium, a rare type of hydrogen, present in the comet's water.

The comet had just half the amount of deuterium seen in comets.

The result, published in Nature, hints at the idea that much of the Earth's water could have initially came from cometary impacts.

Just a few million years after its formation, the early Earth was rocky and dry; something must have brought the water that covers most of the planet today.

Water has something of a molecular fingerprint in the amount of deuterium it contains, and only about a half-dozen comets have been measured in this way.

All of them have exhibited a deuterium fraction twice as high as the oceans, so the current theory holds that asteroids were likely to be the carriers for water; meteorites that they give rise to have roughly the same proportion of deuterium that the Earth's oceans contain.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Technical; US: Iowa
KEYWORDS: abiogenesis; bigsplash; biogenesis; catastrophism; chondrite; comet; comets; earlyearth; godsgravesglyphs; immanuelvelikovsky; louisafrank; louisfrank; notsogreatflood; originoflife; originofoceans; originoftheoceans; panspermia; patrickhuyghe; smallcomets; tethysocean; thebigsplash; velikovsky; water; worldsincollision
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1 posted on 10/05/2011 6:41:46 PM PDT by decimon
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To: SunkenCiv

Comet tale ping.


2 posted on 10/05/2011 6:42:23 PM PDT by decimon
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To: decimon
Small Comets and Our Origins, the Ecstasy and Agony of the Scientific Debate, Louis A. Frank, The Sixteenth Annual Presidential Lecture, The University of Iowa, 1999
3 posted on 10/05/2011 6:47:53 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: decimon
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

4 posted on 10/05/2011 6:49:57 PM PDT by stars & stripes forever ( Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.)
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To: aruanan

Thanks.

Looks like this weighs in favor of that theory.


5 posted on 10/05/2011 6:51:39 PM PDT by decimon
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To: decimon

It’s salty, has fish, plankton, sharks swimming it.


6 posted on 10/05/2011 6:53:51 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER ( Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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to add to what aruanan linked there:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1208497/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1250694/posts


7 posted on 10/05/2011 6:56:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: decimon
deuterium, a rare type of hydrogen

Yikes, who writes this stuff. deuterium is "heavy water" which includes hydrogen obviously but hydrogen is hydrogen is hydrogen unless its something else.
8 posted on 10/05/2011 6:57:01 PM PDT by cripplecreek (MLB Playoff thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2786167/posts)
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...

Thanks decimon.




9 posted on 10/05/2011 6:57:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: cripplecreek

:’) Deuterium is indeed an isotope of hydrogen. Heavy water is Deuterium monoxide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium


10 posted on 10/05/2011 7:00:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: decimon; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

 GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach
Thanks decimon.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.


11 posted on 10/05/2011 7:00:58 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: aruanan

Lou Frank has been attacked for twenty years on this subject.


12 posted on 10/05/2011 7:01:50 PM PDT by iowamark (Rick Perry says I'm heartless.)
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To: decimon

“The result, published in Nature, hints at the idea that much of the Earth’s water could have initially came from cometary impacts. “

or maybe the other way around :)


13 posted on 10/05/2011 7:04:17 PM PDT by ari-freedom (I'm a heartless conservative because I love this country.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Makes sense I guess. Deuterium is just the most commonly used term for heavy water despite the inaccuracy.


14 posted on 10/05/2011 7:04:48 PM PDT by cripplecreek (MLB Playoff thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2786167/posts)
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To: cripplecreek

Makes sense I guess.

Sure, Deuterium = heavy water = cold fusion.
Comets are driven by cold fusion.
Now why didn’t I think of that.
Oh yeah, I just did.


15 posted on 10/05/2011 7:47:09 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: tet68

And who says conservatives don’t do science. LOL


16 posted on 10/05/2011 7:48:39 PM PDT by cripplecreek (MLB Playoff thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2786167/posts)
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To: cripplecreek

“Yikes, who writes this stuff. ...”

It’s strangely worded, but correct. Deuterium is an isotope of Hydrogen. The abundant form of hydrogen has just a proton in the nucleus. Deuterium has a neutron and a proton. That’s why it’s “heavy”.


17 posted on 10/05/2011 8:05:35 PM PDT by brownsfan (Aldous Huxley and Mike Judge were right.)
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To: ROCKLOBSTER
It’s salty, has fish, plankton, sharks swimming it.

Sharks with laser beams.

Oh, and it the lost city of atlantis is there at the bottom, too.

18 posted on 10/05/2011 8:20:39 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (...then they came for the guitars, and we kicked their sorry faggot asses into the dust)
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To: cripplecreek
Makes sense I guess. Deuterium is just the most commonly used term for heavy water despite the inaccuracy.

I recall many years ago being confused in trying to find out what deuterium is. I'd read different things.

19 posted on 10/05/2011 8:21:37 PM PDT by decimon
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To: decimon

How much water is in a comet compared to that in the earth’s oceans? Is it plausible that a strike on the earth by a large dry rock could cause ocean water to splash out into outer space, in such a way that it would enter a highly elliptical orbit about the sun and become a comet?


20 posted on 10/05/2011 8:21:59 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (There's gonna be a Redneck Revolution! (See my freep page) [rednecks come in many colors])
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