Part of the Earth's water is greater than the Sun

2014/10/02 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astrofisika

The researchers have followed the deuterium to know if all the water in the Solar System arose or not with the system itself. It is an isotope of the water molecule, also known as heavy water (because, in addition to a proton, the hydrogen atoms that form the water molecule contain a neutron), and the water generation conditions determine the variation of the ratio between the current water molecule and deuterium. In fact, in the interstellar zone, where new stars are forming, the ice is rich in deuterium, since there are conditions for deuterium to occur. In the oceans of the Earth, and in other ancient bodies of the solar system, the proportion of deuterium of water is high, but astronomers did not know that all this was accompanied by the solar system, so that before the birth of the Sun they were remnants of what was in that environment.

To clarify this, guided by researchers from the University of Michigan, they have reconstructed in a simulation the conditions of creation of the solar system to see how many deuterium occur in those conditions. In the simulation all the deuterium that could come from the system of the interstellar medium has been eliminated, and in the period analyzed, a million years, there have been not so many deuterium generated to explain the wealth of deuterium of the young solar system. The study, published in the journal Science, shows that the high proportion of deuterium in the ancient waters of the solar system comes from interstellar ice. It is estimated that between 30 and 50% of the water in the Earth's oceans can be greater than the Sun and between 60 and 100% of the water in the comets.

It is important to know that the water in the Solar System is older than the Sun. And it is that the process of creation of the Solar System of the Jota is normal in the universe, would mean that interstellar ice, water, would be available in all young planetary systems.