Posted on 11/01/2025 6:27:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists have recreated the conditions inside a young planet, with magma and hydrogen, and uncovered a surprising way water might form.
In the early chaos of planetary formation, before crusts cooled or atmospheres settled, water might already have been bubbling into existence. Not from icy comets or far-flung asteroids, but from the blistering union of magma and hydrogen gas.
That’s the picture emerging from a new study led by Carnegie Science researchers, who’ve managed to reproduce the extreme conditions of young rocky planets in a lab. Their results suggest that planets may be able to make their own water, deep down, right from the start.
Planetary scientists have toyed with it for years, but until now, no one had solid experimental proof. This time, they didn’t just model it. They made it happen.
Lab-built Planets And A Decades-old Mystery
To recreate what happens inside a newborn planet, scientists combined a molten, iron-rich silicate melt, a stand-in for a magma ocean, with molecular hydrogen. That hydrogen represents the thick, gassy atmospheres that tend to wrap around young rocky planets, especially those forming in gas-rich disks.
Samples were squeezed to nearly 60 gigapascals (for reference, that’s about 600,000 times Earth’s surface pressure) and heated beyond 4,000°C. According to Earth.com, these intense conditions mimic the deep interiors of still-molten planets wrapped in thick hydrogen envelopes.
And the chemistry checked out. Hydrogen was absorbed into the molten material, and water was created through reactions between the hydrogen and iron oxides in the melt.
“We showed that a copious amount of hydrogen is dissolved into the melt and significant quantities of water are created,” said lead researcher Francesca Miozzi.
The experiments were carried out under the AEThER project, a collaborative effort bringing together astronomers, petrologists, cosmochemists, and mineral physicists to answer some deceptively simple questions about what makes a planet habitable.
New laboratory research reveals that water can form naturally as planets take shape, without needing external sources. Credit: Navid Marvi/Carnegie Science
Water From Within—Not Delivered
The findings offer a new explanation for something scientists have puzzled over for decades: where Earth’s water actually came from. The popular theories, like water arriving via comets or being trapped in the mantle, don’t fully account for all of it. Now, there’s another possibility: maybe it formed right here, during Earth’s infancy.
According to the AEThER team, it could apply to any rocky planet that begins life wrapped in a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and swimming in the liquid rock. That setup, it turns out, is far from rare.
Hydrogen doesn’t just make water in this scenario, it also changes how the planet evolves. It affects the density of the molten material, how it cools, and how its core separates from the mantle. All of that, in turn, can shape what kind of atmosphere the planet ends up with, or if it keeps one at all. Anat Shahar, co-lead on the project, emphasized the bigger picture:
“This work demonstrates that large quantities of water are created as a natural consequence of planet formation.” It’s not just a one-off mechanism, it’s potentially foundational.
Composite chemical maps from two samples: left shows a lower-pressure example, right shows a higher-pressure one. Credit: Nature
The Hidden Oceans Of Distant Worlds
Now, zoom out to the galaxy. The most common type of planet in the Milky Way? Sub-Neptunes, rocky worlds with thick hydrogen atmospheres early in their lives. According to Earth.com, those are precisely the kinds of planets this chemistry could affect.
If their hydrogen atmospheres are later blasted away by starlight, what’s left could be a smaller, water-bearing super-Earth. And the water? Already waiting inside, formed long ago in a molten ocean. This perspective might change how astronomers interpret exoplanet data. A planet that looks dry or lifeless today could have a deeply watery past, hidden below the surface or locked in minerals.
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I did ponder that years ago.
Curious that it took so long for them to figure it out.
The comet theory always struck me as lazy.
It would have taken million and millions of comets to fill the oceans....................
Yeah, me too. I can’t imagine how many unlucky comets it would take to equal the water on this planet. When I took Chemistry in high school, we had a week-long session on how to construct a filter to get pure water. On the exam the next week, the teacher asked us how to get pure water. I was suppose to construct this elaborate filter, but instead I said: “Burn hydrogen.” The teacher was visibly PO’ed, but gave me full credit.
That it was unlikely to yield the consequent mass is also concerning, especially under solar bombardment.
Yet if I recall, they had stats and logical arguments that supported icy meteorites ocean formation hypothesis as well.
From what I dimly remember is they can tell the meteorite composition by looking at its spectra as it falls through the atmosphere , heats and becomes incandescent. Many of them are made of all or partly frozen water.
Then they used math… number per year falling x so many billion years x estimated mass average= total water. And it was a LOT.
Maybe both theories are valid?
“Burn hydrogen.”
LOL, but you may be exactly correct. In the beginning there was an abundance of hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. All it would take is a spark to combine the two into water.........
This is news? I learned the oceans were formed this way 40 years ago in geology class.
I learned the oceans were formed a different way in the 60’s in Sunday School................
No wonder I’m always pissing and having backaches: my kidneys are full of magma and hydrogen.
GROK says this is the latest guess:
“ Current Scientific Consensus (2025)Theory
Contribution
Status
Outgassing from lava/mantle
~20–40% of total water (early Earth)
Important, but not the main source
Icy asteroids & comets (late veneer)
~60–80% of total water
Dominant modern view
Why the Shift?1. Deuterium-to-Hydrogen (D/H) RatioEarth’s oceans: D/H ≈ 1.5 × 10⁻⁴
Outgassed water from Earth’s mantle: D/H ≈ 1.2–1.4 × 10⁻⁴ → close, but slightly too low
Carbonaceous chondrites (icy asteroids): D/H ≈ 1.4–1.6 × 10⁻⁴ → perfect match
Comets: D/H often 2–3× higher → too deuterium-rich (except some Jupiter-family comets like 67P)
Conclusion: Water chemically matches asteroids, not comets or purely mantle sources.
2. Noble Gases & TimingOutgassing happened early (during magma ocean phase, <100 Myr after formation).
But noble gases (Ne, Ar, Xe) in the atmosphere require late delivery by impacts — outgassing alone can’t explain them.
Icy planetesimals delivered both water and volatiles after the Moon-forming impact.
3. Zircon Evidence (Oldest Crystals)4.4-billion-year-old zircons show liquid water existed very early → some primordial water was present or outgassed.
But volume increased later via impacts.
As I've gotten older, I must have accumulated some magma somewhere in my torso.
It should be noted that small comets deliver water to the Earth 'round the clock, and over the period of Earth's existence that amount is more than sufficient to fill the oceans, particularly since the rate of arrival has probably declined.
Not all the Earth's Water Came From Comets [11/10/2018]
I’ll take it’s a guess Alex for 50
LOL & smh
No excuse for being POd at a student thinking outside the box.
But that’s just my non-lefty trained, scientific mind speaking. /s
Like the "fossil fuel" from dinosaurs and plants theory. Except it doesn't explain Titan's methane lakes. Now they can go figure out how all that crude oil got in the ground and is more being made every day.
Agreed, you have hydrogen and oxygen so is it so far fetched to believe there is a mechanism to make water from that
Like wise the idea that oil comes from decaying organic matter never made sense to me, coal maybe, but not oil in the quantity it exists ans the depths it is found
Lakes of hydrocarbons on Jupiter’s moon, from dead dinosaurs😂
And where did the water in the comets come from🤔 with that theory
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