These analysts suggest that the origin of terrestrial water and life can come from carbonated chondrites and comets.
Scientists have been long convinced that comets, or other more primitive meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites (stony meteorites-non-metal-with chondrules, submillimeter spheres formed by different minerals) were the origins of the elements volatiles from the Earth, including hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, and possibly organic elements. Understanding the origins of these volatile elements is crucial in determining the origins of the present water and life on our planet. New research, led by Conel Alexander, Carnegie Institute, focuses on the frozen water was distributed throughout the solar system, but probably not in the materials initially joined to form the Earth.
The evidence of this ice is now present in objects such as comets and carbonaceous chondrites aquifers. The findings of this group of researchers contradict prevailing theories about the origins similar two body types and suggests that meteorites, asteroids and primitive, are more likely to direct sources of ground water, rather than comets. His work has been published on July 12 in Science Express.
Looking at the proportion of hydrogen in the heavy isotope deuterium in water ice (H2O), scientists can get an idea of the relative distance from the Sun to which objects containing water were formed. The objects that formed farther from the Sun should generally have a higher proportion of deuterium in the ice that formed those close and those that formed in similar regions should have similar isotopic compositions of hydrogen. Therefore, when comparing the deuterium content in water of carbonaceous chondrites with deuterium content of comets, it is possible to identify whether similar regions formed in the solar system.
It has been suggested that comets and carbonaceous chondrites formed beyond the orbit of Jupiter, perhaps even within the limits of the Solar System, and then moved inland, over time even coming to Earth, along with his loading of volatiles and organic material. If this theory were true, then the ice found in comets and the remains of ice preserved in carbonaceous chondrites in the form of hydrated silicates such as clays, may have similar isotopic compositions.
Alexander's team includes scientists from Carnegie Nitler Larry, Marilyn Fogel, and Roxane Bowden, as well as Kieren Howard, Natural History Museum of London, Christopher Herd, University of Alberta. Samples of 85 carbonitas carbonaceous, and were able to show that they are not formed in the same regions of the solar system comets, as they have much less deuterium content. If this is substantiated by the study contradict the two dominant models of the formation of our solar system.
These analysts suggest that carbonate chondrites formed in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. What is more, they suggest that most of the volatile elements terrestrial arrived from a variety of chondrites, not from the kites.
"Our results show important new constraints on the origin of volatile elements in the inner solar system, including Earth. And they have essential implications for current models of formation and orbital evolution of planets and minor bodies in our solar system," concludes Conel Alexander
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