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The source of earth's oceans has been a subject for debate among astronomers for decades. Until now, asteroids were thought to have provided most of the water. Now, however, Herschel has shown that at least one comet does have ocean-like water.
"Life would not exist on Earth without liquid water, and so the questions of how and when the oceans got here is a fundamental one," said U-M astronomy professor Ted Bergin, "It's a big puzzle and these new findings are an important piece."
Six other comets HiFi measured in recent years had a much different D/H ratio than our oceans, meaning similar comets could not have been responsible for more than 10 percent of Earth's water.
The astronomers hypothesize that Hartley 2 was born in a different part of the solar system than the other six. Hartley most likely formed in the Kuiper belt, which starts near Pluto at about 30 times farther from the sun than Earth is. The other six hail from the Oort Cloud more than 5,000 times farther out.
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It also suggests that alot of people should take another look at Immanuel Velikovsky's work.