Did Earth’s Water Originate From An Asteroid?

The water vapor analysis from trail of the comet being observed by the Rosetta spacecraft indicates that comets couldn’t have been the source of the water found on Earth today. It suggests that water was likely delivered by asteroids instead eons ago. The conclusion is based on the molecular study on the two types of hydrogen bound up in the water. The most common type of hydrogen in the sample has a lonely proton in the atom’s nucleus which is markedly different than the hydrogen found on Earth where roughly three molecules out of 20,000 have deuterium – a hydrogen isotope with a proton and a neutron in the nucleus.

This gives us more insight into the formation of the Earth and the universe as the Earth was much too hot in its infancy to retain any kind of water. This is more fuel to the always hot debate for the presence of life elsewhere in the universe. If water, a catalyst for the beginnings of life, could’ve been delivered to Earth in this manner, it surely could have done to other worlds countless times over.