[decimon]

Comet tale ping.

[aruanan]

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

[stars & stripes forever]

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.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

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

[cripplecreek]

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.

[ari-freedom]

“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 :)

[HiTech RedNeck]

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?

[dfwgator]

Comet - it will make your teeth turn green
Comet - it tastes like gasoline

Comet- it will make you vomit
So get some Comet, and vomit, today

[Condor51]

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

I haven't pulled out my slide rule, but I have a *problem* with that theory.

To wit: If you calculated, or estimated, the volume of all the water in the earth's oceans (not even all the lakes and rivers), then factored in the size of the 'average' comet head containing ice you would need a 'googol' of Comets hitting the earth during its 'formative' years - after it cooled but had no water.

Then after 'a while' (scientific term) some of that water would have formed a young atmosphere creating friction for the latter comets with water ice hitting the earth, which would evaporate the water into a gas. And that friction factor would then increase exponentially ('e') as our atmosphere increased. And keep in mind the comet(s) couldn't be too large or the debris field expelled 'up' would create an added friction factor for the other comets to pass through.

Granted, the young solar system was a violent place, just look at the moon. But comets being the source of all our water? I can't imagine the number ('n') of comets involved which would result in getting a '+' = 'water'.

Think I'll fire off an email to Stephan Hawking today for his take on this.

[colorado tanker]

We can't let the Nazis get the heavy water. The ancient aliens said they would come back for it.">