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NASA-Led Team Links Comet Water to Earth’s Oceans
- Water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the water in Earth’s oceans, reopening the case that Jupiter-family comets like 67P could have helped deliver water to Earth.
- Water was essential for life to form and flourish on Earth and scientists have found evidence that a substantial portion of our oceans came from the ice and minerals on asteroids, and possibly comets, that crashed into Earth nearly 4 billion years ago.
- Several measurements of Jupiter-family comets, which are thought to have formed beyond the orbit of Saturn, showed a strong link between their water and Earth’s.
- Measurements of deuterium in the water vapor of several Jupiter-family comets showed similar levels to Earth’s water, indicating that these comets played a major role in delivering water to Earth.
- The ESA's Rosetta mission to 67P challenged the idea that Jupiter-family comets helped fill Earth’s water reservoir in 2014 with measurements showing three times more deuterium than there is in Earth’s oceans.
- Research has shown that some of Earth’s water originated through vapor vented from volcanoes, and some came from asteroids and possibly comets crashing into Earth.
- A team led by Kathleen Mandt used an advanced statistical-computation technique to isolate deuterium-rich water in over 16,000 Rosetta measurements and found a clear connection between deuterium measurements in the coma of 67P and the amount of dust around the Rosetta spacecraft.
- The researchers found that the measurements taken near the spacecraft may not be representative of the composition of a comet’s body, but when dust gets to the outer part of the coma, at least 75 miles from the comet body, deuterium-rich water is gone, allowing accurate measurement.
- This discovery is important not only for understanding comets’ role in delivering Earth’s water, but also for understanding comet observations that provide insight into the formation of the early solar system.
- It is a great opportunity to revisit past observations and prepare for future ones so we can better account for the dust effects.
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