How the Moon Formation Brought Water to Earth
The Earth is unique in our solar system: It is the only terrestrial planet with a large amount of water and a relatively large moon, which stabilizes the Earth’s axis. Both were essential for Earth to develop life.
Planetologists at the University of Münster (Germany) have now been able to show, for the first time, that water came to Earth with the formation of the Moon some 4.4 billion years ago.
From the outer into the inner solar system
The Earth formed in the ‘dry’ inner solar system, and so it is somewhat surprising that there is water on Earth. To understand why this the case, we have to go back in time when the solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago. From earlier studies, we know that the solar system became structured such that the ‘dry’ materials were separated from the ‘wet’ materials: the so-called ‘carbonaceous’ meteorites, which are relatively rich in water, come from the outer solar system, whereas the drier ‘non-carbonaceous’ meteorites come from the inner solar system.
The measurements made by the researchers from Münster show that the molybdenum isotopic composition of the Earth lies between those of the carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous meteorites, demonstrating that some of Earth’s molybdenum originated in the outer solar system. In this context, the chemical properties of molybdenum play a key role because, as it is an iron-loving element, most of the Earth’s molybdenum is located in the core.
But the scientists are going one step further. They show that most of the molybdenum in Earth’s mantle was supplied by the protoplanet Theia, whose collision with Earth 4.4 billion years ago led to the formation of the Moon. However, since a large part of the molybdenum in Earth’s mantle originates from the outer solar system, this means that Theia itself also originated from the outer solar system.
Contacts and sources:
Dr. Gerrit Budde
University of Münster.
Citation: Molybdenum isotopic evidence for the late accretion of outer Solar System material to Earth Gerrit Budde, Christoph Burkhardt & Thorsten Kleine https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0779-y http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0779-y
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