RAS Researchers have found out where the water on Earth came from

As explained by Academician Mikhail Marov, head of the planetary research department of RAS, Earth and the planets of the Earth group were formed in the high-temperature zone of the protoplanetary disk, where water and volatile matter was not retained, but concentrated behind the "snow line" at a distance of more than three astronomical units.

"Asteroids of the outer asteroid belt and comets were formed behind the snow line and included water when formed," said Marov.

Employees of the Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry RAS on the basis of a set of long-term studies have concluded that small cosmic bodies, actively bombarding the young Earth contributed significantly to the formation of water reserves on the planet. The total mass of the bodies' matter could have been commensurate with the mass of Earth's oceans, the study said.

"If the space bodies containing water had not come to Earth from behind of the snow line, the Earth's oceans most likely would not have existed. In that case, small amounts of water might have come to Earth's surface only from its interior. Life on the Earth as we see it would probably not exist," stressed Sergei Ipatov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Sergey Ipatov and his colleagues, scientists from the laboratory of thermodynamics and mathematical modeling of natural processes at RAS, published a review on the study of the migration of small space bodies, dust and planets in the solar system. They studied the results of numerical simulations of migration processes and found out whether the migration of small bodies to the Earth is of key importance when studying the role of the exogenous source of water and the possibility of forming the conditions for the origin of life not only in the solar system, but also in exoplanet systems.