What are they trying to do? Embarrass our Sun and make it feel insecure and inferior?
(What are they trying to do? Embarrass our Sun and make it feel insecure and inferior?)
Rejoice oh young star in thy youth.
Our sun went through its T-Tauri phase and blew Earth’s primordial atmosphere into space (mostly highly volatile compounds like methane and ammonia). The subsequent heating and outgassing from volcanic activity resulted in a highly reduced atmosphere of water vapor, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. When earth’s atmosphere reached saturation temperature, all of the water vapor (~100 bars) rained out to form the oceans. Oxygen came later from an explosion of algae and other plant life but that’s another story. The comet theory for our oceans is invalid because of a significant difference in the O18/O16 ratio found in comets compared with that of ocean water.
Sadly, venus most likely contained as much water as on earth initially but the atmosphere never cooled enough to reach saturation vapor pressure. All of the water eventually boiled off into space. The oceans on earth stabilized the climate along with earth’s magnetic field and the presence of a large moon to keep earth’s axis from tipping on its side. We’re ackshully very lucky to be here. Then there is the argument for intelligent design but I digress.
-Frank