How Jupiter May Have Gifted Early Earth With Water

A new model of the solar system suggest we have gas giants to thank for our watery world



By Nola Taylor Redd
smithsonian.com
June 20, 2018 9:00AM

When it comes to the early days of our solar system, Jupiter holds a dubious reputation. In some ways, the giant served as Earth’s protector, its gravity launching dangerous debris away from the rocky planets. At the same time, Jupiter may have hurled material inward as well, crashing hydrogen-rich asteroids and planetary embryos, or planetesimals, into crowded young terrestrial planets.

Now, researchers suggest that in doing so, Jupiter and other gas giants may have contributed something else crucial to rocky worlds: water.

The most massive worlds may have shepherded water-rich debris from the outer solar system to fall on the rocky worlds. And new research suggests the delivery of the liquid, a key ingredient for life as we know it, may not have been luck. Instead, all planetary systems fortunate enough to host a gas giant in their outskirts should automatically have water-rich material falling on their rocky inner planets.

After the gas giants have fully developed, the debris they hurl inward can be dangerous. But during a key phase of their birth, they toss hydrogen-rich material that winds up locked into Earth’s crust and mantle, emerging later to bond with oxygen and become water.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-jupiter-may-have-gifted-early-earth-water-180969411/#oVfY35TYyrxbdPw3.99