by Register for CNNS Wonder Theory Science Newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific progress and more.
Researchers say they have uncovered evidence that the early earth had more hydrogen than previously assumed and questioned that they question the origins of water and the development of our planet.
Scientists from the University of Oxford analyzed a rare type of meteorite, which is known as an Enstitit chondrit. According to a study published on Wednesday in the magazine Icarus, the Space Rock will end around 4.6 billion years and it is assumed that it is similar in the early earth.
The researchers found that the majority of the hydrogen contained in the meteorite were intrinsic instead of being present on the basis of contamination, which indicates that early earth would have housed sufficient hydrogen to enable the formation of water molecules.
This statement questions the conviction that was in question that hydrogen came into the ground in asteroids that bombed a previously dry, rocky planet, which was unable to support life.
“We assumed that the earth has water today because it had been hit by these asteroids,” said the main study author Tom Barrett, doctoral student at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, on Wednesday.
“But what we demonstrated in this study is that the material that primarily formed the earth actually contained a lot of hydrogen and oxygen,” he added. “The discovery of hydrogen in this meteorite means that the earth may have been hydrated or wet from its initial formation.”
As for the hydrogen levels identified in the study, Barrett explained that the chemical element, especially low concentrations, was difficult to measure. Evidence is only possible thanks to a technology that is known as an X-ray absorption near the edge structure or Xanes spectroscopy, said.
The Enstitit chondrit is a rare type of meteorite that is assumed that it is similar in composition of the early earth. – NASA
“You need a particle accelerator for this,” he said. “This is like an enormous, really expensive facility that we have very happy in this study. But it is not exactly the kind of experiment that you can carry out in the garage.”
The study may increase our understanding of the early earth, but the discovery of hydrogen in the meteorite does not mean that life would necessarily have developed earlier, said Barrett. This is because the habitability of a planet depends more on the way it develops than the material from which it is formed, he said.
Hydrogen on the early earth
A team of scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research had previously analyzed the meteorite collected in Antarctica, known as LAR in 12252. The study in August 2020 showed that the chondrus of the Space Rock or the tiny spherical objects and the organic material it contained had traces of hydrogen. However, research only made part of the hydrogen within the meteorite.
The researchers behind the new study believed that more hydrogen could be bound to sulfur within the meteorite. The team unexpectedly found “almost ten times more” sulfide according to hydrogen sulfide in the fine matrix that surrounded the chondrus than in the spherical objects, according to the study.
“We were incredibly enthusiastic when the analysis informed us that the sample contained hydrogen sulfide – just not where we expected!” Barrett said in a statement. “Since the likelihood of this hydrogen sulfide, which comes from the terrestrial contamination, is very low, this research provides important evidence to support the theory that water on earth is native – that it is a natural result of what our planet is made of.”
The role of asteroid and comet effects
Next, Barrett plans to analyze more meteorites in order to determine exactly how much hydrogen would have been on earth and how much could have been delivered from external sources.
When he finds out what the earth looked like it does today, it is a fundamental question for planetary scientists, said co -author James Bryson, Associate Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford.
“We now think that the material that has built our planet – which we can examine with these rare meteorites – thought much richer in hydrogen than before,” he said.
“This finding supports the idea that the formation of water on earth was more of a natural process than a chance of hydrated asteroids that bomb our planet after its foundation.”
Matt Genge, a planetary scientist at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study, told CNN that the study is an “interesting result”, the evidence is not sufficient to overthrow the many years of the origins of water.
The meteorite in question has probably been in Antarctic for hundreds of thousands of years, he said, and it is impossible to completely rule out the likelihood that the hydrogen may have developed during this time.
“Only the fact that there is a possibility makes the argument less strong,” said Genge.
Bryson admitted that the meteorite was actually on earth for many years before it was collected, but the study results were.
“We believe that in our analysis workflow we have made every effort to alleviate the effects of terrestrial water on our results, and we believe that part of the total amount of H (hydrogen) in meteorite is due to earth water (possibly about 15%),” said Bryson by e -mail as an answer to Genge.
“We also believe that some H (hydrogen) were still given by asteroids and comets, but we now believe that this is a small part of the entire H (hydrogen) in our planet. So Matts assessment of this meteorite is justified, but we have tried to minimize its concern.”
More CNN messages and newsletter create an account at CNN.com
