What is the Origin of Water on Planets?

What is the origin of water on planets? Did it come from cometary impacts, or did water form naturally on Earth and Mars? A Martian asteroid may hold the answer.

Mars was once a water world. So, where did the water there — as well as on Earth — come from? A new study of a martian meteorite could hold the answer. Image credit: NASA/GSFC

Water covers around three-quarters of Earth, and it can be found on other worlds of the Solar System, including sub-surface deposits of ice on Mars. One of the great questions in planetary science today is attempting to understand how water came to exist on the surface of planets, including Earth.

Water forms naturally during the course of many chemical reactions, so one possibility is that water was created during chemical reactions in the early solar system. Another possible explanation is that water was delivered to the surface of planets through collisions with comets — which are, essential, dirty snowballs in space.

I Camel Here to ROCK!

The Martian meteorite NWA 7533, nicknamed “Black Beauty.” Image credit: NASA/Luc Labenne

A pair of meteorites were found in the Sahara Desert several years ago, and dubbed NWA [North West Africa] 7034 and NWA 7533. Researchers found these bodies, mixtures of several types of rock, were from the planet Mars. One of these rare pieces of Mars, NWA 7533, was recently examined by investigators from the University…