Where does the water on Earth come from?

Scientists have found further evidence that the presence of water on Earth because our waterless planet got hit by an asteroid which filled with water. The asteroid is believed to have given us the oceans, rivers, lakes, and all the life that follows.

An artist's impression of a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the strong gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61. (Picture from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/)

The study which appears in the Science Magazine is based on the findings of the NASA's Hubble telescope. The space telescope detects the light emitted by GD 61, a death star which is as far as 150 light years from Earth. The dying star eats a water-rich asteroid.

Astronomers detect the abundance of the rock minerals, such as magnesium, silicon, and iron, on the asteroid. They also detect the presence of large amounts of oxygen. The team's calculations point to the source body being an asteroid at least 90 km across and composed of perhaps 26% by mass of water. This water content is very similar to Ceres, the largest asteroid in the main belt of our Solar System and the target of a NASA probe in 2015.

Dr. Jay Farihi from the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy, said that there was water on the Earth should come from external sources. "Some of the water-rich asteroid is a very good candidate," he said as quoted by BBC News, on Friday, October 11, 2013.

Professor Boris Gänsicke from the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick said it was the first time scientists have found a rock debris that also contains water outside our solar system. "Both materials (rocky surface and water) are key in the hunt for habitable planets outside our solar system, so it is interesting to find them together outside our solar system," he said.

This discovery opens up the possibility of habitable planet that has water like Earth out there. Farihi sure the hypothetical planet was not collarbone as previously suspected. "The discovery of water on large asteroids means that the basic material of the habitable planets was exist, may be still exist in the GD61 system, and perhaps also in other star systems," he said. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | SCIENCE MAGAZINE | TELEGRAPH | BBC | ERWIN Z | KORAN TEMPO 4373]

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