Artistic vision of a young star surrounded by a gas and dust disk. Scientists believe that rocky planets, like the Earth, are formed from these materials.
The water in the dust grains that formed the Earth can explain the current water volume of our planet. At least, the group of scientists from the Netherlands, Germany and Britain thinks so. They base their findings on reports and simulations.
For a long time, researchers tried to explain large volumes of water on Earth. The first scenario assumed that water is delivered by comets and asteroids. The second believes that the planet was born “wet” and the water was originally present in the 10-kilometer boulders from which the planet was formed. But the amount of water provided by stones is limited. Now scientists have developed and calculated the variant of the scenario “stones with water”. It turns out that in the region where the Earth once appeared, small millimeter dust grains were able to have enough water. Then the water-rich dust grains merge to form pebbles, and at the end kilometer-high boulders. The latter are able to have the necessary water volumes.
New calculations also show that fine dust grains can collect enough water in just a million years to explain the earth’s supply.
