Jakarta Water is an important thing that cannot be separated from human life. Without water humans cannot live.
Reported from detikINET, about 71% of the Earth’s surface is water. So do not be surprised if the Earth is known as the ‘Blue Planet’. Most of the human body also consists of water.
Humans need regular water intake so that the body can carry out its functions to keep us alive. It is also possible that humans originally emerged from water before evolving into the land mammals that dominated Earth.
However, have you ever thought about where the water on Earth comes from? How did water originate in the universe, within our Solar System, and how did water find its way to our planet?
This question may be very complicated to answer. Quoted from BBC Sky Night Magazine, planetary science has provided answers about where water actually comes from.
How is water formed?
Water molecules form in interstellar space through chemical reactions between hydrogen molecules and oxygen-carrying molecules such as carbon monoxide. The Solar System inherited its water from the icy interstellar grains in the dust cloud where the Sun and planets formed 4.6 billion years ago.
Water in the solar system is locked in two main forms. Water that is far from the Sun where the temperature is low forms icy objects like comets. Meanwhile, water closer to the Sun reacts with rocky material to form hydrated minerals.
Planet Earth is thought to inherit its water from the asteroids and comets that hit it. Initially most of this water was added to Earth’s growing mantle as it formed and was released from the interior by subsequent volcanic activity.
Hayabusa Mission
In 2019, the Japanese space agency JAXA worked on the Hayabusa mission to substantiate the theory that water on Earth came from asteroids. This mission was carried out to reveal that asteroids play a major role in studies whose reports have been published in Science Advances.
In 2010, the Hayabusa spacecraft succeeded in bringing particles from the surface of an asteroid named 25143 Itokawa. From these grains, the researchers managed to analyze the presence of water contained in them by shooting ions at the sample to find out the composition of the asteroid’s surface.
The grain size is smaller than 40 microns, or less than 0.04 millimeters. Each grain is made of several different minerals. Therefore, the ion fired by researchers must focus on certain minerals. In this study, they focused on analyzing iron and pyroxene.
Pyroxene crystals have a structure that has no spaces that allow water to enter, or in other words the opposite of clay. Researchers exploit this property of pyroxene using highly sensitive techniques to detect and measure very small quantities of water.
As a result, the researchers found that the granules contained up to 1,000 ppm (parts per million) of water, or a concentration of only 0.001. From that discovery, the researchers were able to estimate the water contained in asteroid 25143 Itokawa as a whole, with an amount between 160 and 510 ppm.
The study also shows that the isotopic composition of the hydrogen in the water at 25143 Itokawa is very close to Earth’s. This indicates that the source of water on Earth is the same as the grains brought by Hayabusa.
Watch Video “The Reckless Action of an Indian Woman Going Down to the Bottom of a Well for Water“
(urw/alk)
2023-06-02 15:00:07
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