Study suggests Earth's hydrogen was enough for its water budget

Thread starter pinball1970
Start date Apr 17, 2025

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SUMMARY

A team from Oxford University has discovered that enstatite chondrites, a rare type of meteorite, contain intrinsic hydrogen crucial for the formation of water on early Earth, approximately 4.55 billion years ago. This research, published in the journal Icarus, challenges the prevailing theory that asteroids delivered hydrogen to Earth during its formative years. Instead, the findings indicate that the planet's building materials were inherently rich in hydrogen, negating the need for external sources to create habitable conditions.

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Apr 17, 2025

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TL;DR: The origin of hydrogen, and, by extension, water, on Earth has been highly debated, with many believing that the necessary hydrogen was delivered by asteroids from outer space during Earth's first approximately 100 million years. But these new findings contradict this, suggesting instead that Earth had the hydrogen it needed to create water from when it first formed.

A team from Oxford using a rare type of meteorite, an enstatite chondrite, which has a composition analogous to that of the early Earth (4.55 billion years ago), have found a source of hydrogen which would have been critical for the formation of water molecules.

They demonstrated that the hydrogen present in this material was intrinsic, and not from contamination. This suggests that the material which our planet was built from was far richer in hydrogen than previously thought.

The findings, which support the theory that the formation of habitable conditions on Earth did not rely on asteroids hitting Earth, have been published in the journal Icarus..

The origin of hydrogen, and, by extension, water, on Earth has been highly debated, with many believing that the necessary hydrogen was delivered by asteroids from outer space during Earth's first approximately 100 million years. But these new findings contradict this, suggesting instead that Earth had the hydrogen it needed to create water from when it first formed.