The Green Timberwolf

Out of this World News!

New Water on New Comets
By: Maddie G.

The Rosetta spacecraft has detected water coming off comet 67P. The water vapor found on Comet 67P has been tested and found to be significantly different to the water found on Earth. The spacecraft found that water on comet 67P contains about three times more deuterium than water on Earth. Deuterium is a heavier form of hydrogen.

Comet 67P

This is leading to the debate of where the water on Earth originated from in the first place. It is believed that when the planet was formed 4.6 billion years ago, any of the existing water should have been boiled off. But now in 2015, about two thirds of the planet is covered in water.

So where did all this water come from? Scientists think that Comet 67P came from what is called the Kuiper belt, which is a broad band of frozen bodies that begins outside the orbit of Neptune. Kathrin Altwegg from the University of Bern said that instead of comets carrying water to Earth, the water may have arrived on the asteroids instead.

The Rosetta spacecraft “selfie

Measurements from other comets have found water with similar deuterium contents to that on Earth, but the strange structure of comet 67P’s water suggests that the idea of the comets bringing water to Earth is too basic. Altwegg said that in the end, the earth’s oceans are probably made from a mix of things.