Water On Earth Theory

I have always been puzzled on how water was produced on Earth ( I can't really think of any word except for "produced"). Most of my Science Teachers say that it was "created" from Nebulas etc. But could it be possible that the water was brought here by Comets? Because for me its extrememly unlikely that Water has survived here on Earth considering that on its early years it was volcanically active. So is it possible?

There is a theory that much of our water came from space and more is added to it pretty routinely.

science.nasa.gov...

smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu...

and then there are some opposed to the controversial theory above. link below
www.xs4all.nl...

I have personally seen a fiery object in the night sky break up into tons of tiny little glowing specks in a perfectly circular area as the object streaked past a full moon one night at the beach. The glowing objects covered an area at least 3 times the size of the full moon. Then they all faded away. The whole event I estimate only lasted 10 to 12 seconds as the bright object streaked across the sky and then exploded into shiny and smaller glitter like objects before fading away.

I have determined based on what I've read about small icy comets that this was probably one of them. Satellites don't usually break up into a million perfectly symmetrical centered pieces so quickly I believe.

So basically, comets shattered and a huge wall of water came falling from the sky. Sounds fun

Originally posted by Ken_Allen
So basically, comets shattered and a huge wall of water came falling from the sky. Sounds fun

Not quite ,comets would burn up entering the atmosphere giving off water vapor
which would stay in the atmosphere untill it fell as rain. No big splashes

There should be no big surprise here. Everything on the planet earth came from elsewhere in the universe.
If water 'developed' from existing elements (Hydrogen & Oxygen... DUH !!!) present on the slowly forming planet, or if it was deposited by subsequent impacts from stellar visitors (animal, vegetable or mineral?)... it all had it's origin OUT THERE.

As Carl Sagan remarked...... we are all starstuff.

My '87 Mercury is oddly enough from precisely there.

Originally posted by DaVirus
Most of my Science Teachers say that it was "created" from Nebulas etc.

This is kinda shocking...isnt it?? Water wasnt created in Nebula's. i am not even in the science field and i know this. Where the hell did they get their degrees????

Originally posted by DaVirus
Most of my Science Teachers say that it was "created" from Nebulas etc.

Yes, it forms in space.

But could it be possible that the water was brought here by Comets?

Yes! You hit the nail on the head. Icey comets hitting the earth, over long periods of time, leave a surprising amount of water.

Because for me its extrememly unlikely that Water has survived here on Earth considering that on its early years it was volcanically active.

But where's it going to go? It can't leave the planet (not in an espeically significant amount), because you need to reach an escape velocity and the like for that.


Also, when rocks are subducted, they undergo a chemical change (due to the pressure and heat), and this causes certian minerals to become unstable and transform into other types,and often one of the products released from this is -Oh. This stuff gets released in a large amount, percolates thru the rock above, stripping off hydrogen, and becomming h20, regular water. So, there is water in minerals, and in space rocks, its just 'hidden' in that way.

Originally posted by DaVirus
.... water was brought here by Comets?

Because for me its extrememly unlikely that Water has survived here on Earth considering that on its early years it was volcanically active.

So is it possible?

it seems that the water on earth (all of it came from space)
is still here, 4 billion years later, Because Of That Volcanism
you think would of destroyed the water[as i interpet your post]

science holds that the dense atmosphere caused by the gasses
from the early earth volcanos, helped to trap the water into the
'cycle' we are familiar with--> liquid evaporates->clouds->percipates
& collects into liquid pool, Again,again,again....

science says that Mars once had a dense enough atmosphere to
recycle and retain the water which came from space...then have
pools, lakes perhaps oceans, a long time ago
but as the volcanos died out, the atmosphere that trapped the
water itself was 'evaporating' into space taking the water with it.

Mars is dry now, except for whats locked in the depths or in frozen
tundras...thats what the conventional science says

me, i still entertain the old-romantic theory that the planets Mars & Earth
got a sudden and unexpected 'deluge' of water when the
Exploded-Planet (some call it Vulcan)=which remains are the asteroid belt of today...
got into a period of uncontrolled 'outgassing' and blew itself to pieces
> Google up the: exploded planet hypothesis < ...if you care to

yo, 'they' regarded deep-sea life at thermal vents as impossible when i went to school+college...?
who's to say what the actual, as opposed to possible, history of our oceans IS ?

I believe I also heard a theory that Earth once had a very dense atmosphere more like Venus than the Earth we know today. Then an extremely large object bigger than the moon collided with the Earth and blew away a large portion of the atmosphere. A large chunk of material settled into orbit and is now our moon. I have heard very little about this theory since I first heard about it.

If you take an Astronomy course in college, you can learn a lot of general science which does apply to the Earth and to other planets as well. If you consider the Earth may have once been like Venus and currently Venus has no liquid oceans, you might get a better understanding of how Earth may have been in the early days. The atmosphere on Venus is very dense and hot. I believe lead will melt on the surface. Our space probes get crushed by the extreme pressure of all that gas within the atmosphere as well. It's very possible the Earth once had a much denser thicker atmosphere.

One other theory is that a big portion of the water currently found within our oceans came from deep within the Earth. The theory goes something like the deep springs of the Earth opened up and flooded the planet spewing mountains of water sky high which rained back down on the Earth flooding everything. After things settled down the ocean water level had increased enormously. It's just another theory though. This theory is more related to the Great Flood than a theory related to where all the water came from.


[edit on 28-6-2005 by orionthehunter]

This thread has a few good theories on where water came from...

Where water came from

Check it out!

[edit on 6-28-2005 by IronDogg]

Very nice information guys. So I guess there can be a lot of different reasons on how Water came to Earth then.. By the way I'm actually going to do an Extra Credit presentation for this so Thank u all for all the information..

It's a very interesting point regarding the origins of water. Most threads around here are more about how the Human Specias came to be here and how ti has evolved.

Great Thread.

In my opinion I believe much of the water was probably already here on Earth. I can imagine our solar system starting off as a large cloud of space dust forming into clumps with the Sun as the biggest clump. Several other protoplanets, comets and other clumps formed. Then most of the planets as we know them today formed from these conglomerations. Since the solar system started off as space dust, it's possible much of the lighter elements such as hydrogen etc were pushed farther out towards Jupiter and Saturn rather than closer to the Sun where we are at. The solar wind could have provided some force to push the elements away I believe. However since hydrogen is very abundant anyway, there was still plenty of it. Therefore you see today rocky inner planets and large gaseous outer planets. The gravity of Venus and Earth were sufficient to trap a large amount of the lighter elements within their sphere of influence. Then the Earth lost a lot of it's atmosphere in a massive collision with an object that formed into our moon. That's my opinion.

I think fresh water has been here a long time. Its probably the salt water thats the new arrival, in my eyes.

Some sort of sulfiric body had a near miss, but dumped off a large part of its tail, it would have had to be massive nonetheless.

I'm sure calculations can be made that say how much water is needed to raise the ocean enough to submerge a continent ALA Atlantis, but what also needs to be taken into consideration is the MAGNETIC effect such a large body would have, in the case of a high velocity near miss.

It would put a sudden shift on the Earth's magnetic poles, maybe loosen the continents off their plates enough for a massive upheaval. And then the water would come too!

Good thing 'They' promised not to do the same, in the case that it is a repeat offender (that is, in a orbit that brings it back to relatively the same position, over the course of thousands of years)

It would explain some of the personifications of Gods as planets, or objects in space, atleast.

in science we just finnished a unit on this (yay summer break) and we learned a theory that water came from the volcanoes (like geyser's)

Okay I understand now. But since water on Earth is recycled (Evaporation-->Condensation etc.) It Is (For me) very unlikely that water here has just 'popped out', so It must have come from somewhere else. By the way whats the most logical or accepted theory about the beginings of water here on Earth?

EDIT-->On Spelling Mistakes.

[edit on 30-6-2005 by DaVirus]