The ocean on the early Earth may have been created by chemical reactions

Photo Credit: Nikwax The Earth is a planet famed for its clear oceans because of water. Water is essential to Earth's ability to support life and modifies the ground through erosion. However, since the components that made up Earth were probably dry and any surface waters should have been thrown into space by the collisions that converted these components into a planet, it is difficult for us to understand how Earth came to have so much water. Water delivery to Earth after its genesis has been suggested using a variety of methods. But a recent research brings the knowledge we've learned from studying exoplanets to Earth. Photo Credit: CNET

Waterproof

The materials found in the inner Solar System appear to have been used predominantly in the construction of the Earth. Not only were those minerals in the proper location, but they also gave good matches in terms of elemental and isotopic composition to material now found in asteroids in the area. But these substances are also extremely dry. That comes as no surprise because the climate here would have prevented water from freezing into a solid, as it can do farther beyond the Solar System, over the water's "ice line."

Chemistry on a planetary scale

To test that hypothesis, the researchers effectively created a scaled-up replica of a massive chemical reactor that contained the majority of the components of the early Earth and was half the size of the present-day Earth. This contains substances like carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen, iron and sodium oxides, different silicates, and more. All of this was heated and positioned beneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere to reflect the magma oceans produced by the numerous planet-forming collisions. Also Read: With fresh imagery, Google Earth enhances its fascinating Timelapse function

Modeling's limitations

On the plus side, a wide range of temperatures can be used in the simulations; all that is needed is enough heat to keep the globe molten until the processes discussed here reach equilibrium. It also functions with different precursor sizes, although it fails with too-small precursors. That seems sense given how arid Mars and Mercury are. The main factor is how much water is created; if more hydrogen accumulates in the core, it will be simple to produce a water world with three times the current ocean volume.