{"id":179552,"date":"2025-10-25T17:08:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/the-origin-of-earths-oceans-has-always-been-somewhat-mysterious-now-we-have-a-better-understanding-of-how-it-came-about\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T17:08:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:08:29","slug":"the-origin-of-earths-oceans-has-always-been-somewhat-mysterious-now-we-have-a-better-understanding-of-how-it-came-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/the-origin-of-earths-oceans-has-always-been-somewhat-mysterious-now-we-have-a-better-understanding-of-how-it-came-about\/","title":{"rendered":"The origin of Earth’s oceans has always been somewhat mysterious. Now we have a better understanding of how it came about."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A team of scientists, analyzing the tiny and invaluable samples<\/a> of the asteroid Ryugu brought to Earth by the Hayabusa2 mission, has made a discovery that shakes our understanding of \u00a0water\u00a0 in the early solar system. The discovery, published in the prestigious<\/a> magazine Nature<\/em>, reveals that \u00a0liquid water\u00a0 flowed in Ryugu’s progenitor body more than a billion years after its formation. Something that \u00a0changes our paradigms\u00a0.<\/p>\n

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Contradiction.<\/strong> This new discovery contradicts the belief that \u00a0water activity\u00a0 in asteroids was a phenomenon exclusive to the early history of our solar system. Most importantly, it could force us to recalculate how much water these bodies brought to a young Earth.<\/p>\n

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Many doubts.<\/strong> The story of how our planet became an \u00a0aquatic world\u00a0 still has gaps. One of the most accepted theories is that carbonaceous asteroids<\/a> formed from ice and dust in the far reaches of the Solar System acted as a \u00a0cosmic “water delivery” service\u00a0 for the inner planets. JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission has provided us with a unique opportunity to study this process by bringing back 5.4 grams of pure material from the asteroid Ryugu.<\/p>\n

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 <img alt=\"It also rains on the Sun, but not water: science has solved the mystery of plasma rain\" width=\"375\" height=\"142\" src=\"https:\/\/i.blogs.es\/293353\/javier-miranda-5qpsvqmlqos-unsplash\/375_142.jpeg\"\/><\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
And this is very important. While meteorites that fall to Earth are altered by contact with the atmosphere and environment, the Ryugu samples are a \u00a0near-perfect time capsule\u00a0. This is because a perfect record of \u00a0water activity\u00a0 is preserved within it, proof that fluids moved through its rocks sooner than could be expected. This is something fundamental that changes how we think about where \u00a0water\u00a0 in asteroids comes from and how it ends up on our planets.<\/p>\n
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Isotopic clock.<\/strong> To reach this conclusion, the team turned to a “radiometric dating<\/a>” based on isotopes: the radioactive decay of \u00a0Lutetium-176\u00a0 into \u00a0Hafnium-176\u00a0. This is similar to the ‘Carbon-14’ test that is better known.<\/p>\n
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In an object as old as Ryugu’s father, one would expect the proportion of these elements to follow a predictable line, known as an isochrone<\/a>, which dates back to 4.565 million years ago. However, Ryugu’s data did not fit these models. The samples exhibited a deviation from that ‘reference’ line, showing an excess of \u00a0Hafnium\u00a0 (or a deficiency of \u00a0Lutetium\u00a0).<\/p>\n
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To understand why, it was first ruled out that it was due to accelerated \u00a0disintegration\u00a0 or the effects of \u00a0cosmic radiation\u00a0. This led to the conclusion that, at some point, a \u00a0liquid\u00a0 ‘washed’ away some of the \u00a0Lutetium\u00a0 from the asteroid’s rocks.<\/p>\n
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The reasons.<\/strong> The event that triggered this late flow of water was most likely a violent impact. While the first aqueous activity, which occurred in the first seven million years of the solar system, was driven by heat from the decay of radioactive elements, this second event was notably different.<\/p>\n
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Specifically, we are talking about an impact on the body of Ryugu’s ‘father’ that generated enough heat to melt the \u00a0ice\u00a0 that had remained frozen for eons and simultaneously created fractures in the rock that emerged as channels for \u00a0liquid water\u00a0 to flow.<\/p>\n
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 <img alt=\"NASA has just announced that this large asteroid has a 1% chance of impacting Earth. That's not normal\" width=\"375\" height=\"142\" src=\"https:\/\/i.blogs.es\/72aa8f\/f7e5e0e56b4d2dcc3f2760ebab71f97bd74dc994\/375_142.png\"\/><\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
On the Primitive Earth.<\/strong> If asteroids like Ryugu’s father were able to retain not only hydrated minerals but also \u00a0large amounts of water ice\u00a0 for more than a billion years, their potential to ‘water’ other planets is significantly greater than previously expected.<\/p>\n
Current models of the \u00a0formation of terrestrial planets\u00a0 could be underestimating the amount of water contributed by these bodies. According to this study, Ryugu-like planetesimals could have delivered two to three times more water to Earth than is commonly estimated. This would have direct implications on our understanding of the origin of the \u00a0oceans\u00a0, the \u00a0atmosphere\u00a0, and, in general, the conditions that made it possible for us all to live here.<\/p>\n
Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope<\/a>, Carl Wang<\/a><\/p>\n
In Xataka | The last asteroid loaded with precious metals to graze the Earth escaped us. For the next one, we already have a plan.<\/p>\n

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General News – 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A team of scientists, analyzing the tiny and invaluable samples of the asteroid Ryugu brought to Earth by the Hayabusa2 mission, has made a discovery that shakes our understanding of \u00a0water\u00a0 in the early solar system. The discovery, published in the prestigious magazine Nature, reveals that \u00a0liquid water\u00a0 flowed in Ryugu’s progenitor body more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36399],"tags":[27243,3701,865,24030,5254],"class_list":["post-179552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-earths","tag-mysterious","tag-oceans","tag-origin","tag-understanding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}