If water was carried to earth by comets, where is all the evidence?

BoJangles · Dec 29, 2008

If water was carried to earth by comets, where is all the evidence? Why don’t all the moons, asteroids and planets we know of have the same ratio of water comparable to earth (or at least water vapour) as the earth. This should be even more prominent in colder environments where water isn’t so volatile. Where is all the rare elements. Why doesn’t Jupiter have a large amounts of water vapour in its atmosphere? I assume comets with water had their fair share of impacts on every object in the solar system as well.I understand that the solar wind is responsible, and can account for some loss, but as far as I'm concerned there should be water ice vapour and liquid everywhere we look in the solar system, in huge ratios not seen in the inner solar system.Unless someone can give me some good arguments for the above, I’ll have to believe this whole water comet thing is just hack for a less plausible solution.Im sorry for the negativity, but this has been bugging me for years, and i hope someone can learn me better

Thanks in advance for your response.  <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> -------------- Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog. With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... *** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research *** </div>

BoJangles · Dec 29, 2008

Anyone? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> -------------- Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog. With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... *** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research *** </div>

baulten · Dec 29, 2008

Water IS very abundant.  It's very abundant on the Earth and Mars (It's frozen in the caps and cryosphere on Mars) and is thought to have once been abundant on Venus (It was lost due to the massive evaporation rate and then disassociated and the hydrogen escaped due to heating by the solar wind).  It's not abundant on the Moon or other small objects because they lack atmospheres and it rapidly sublimates into water vapor and reaches escape velocity. In the outher solar system, most moons are made of a high proportion of water ice.  Io is one exception.  It isn't "abundant" in the gas giants because, well, they are massive.  I don't think there is enough water in the entire solar system to make a huge impact on the makeup of Jupiter.  The outer gas giants (Uranus and Neptune) do have a large amount of ices, such as water and ammonia.

jim48 · Dec 29, 2008

<img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/2/15/92e62595-c67c-4309-8f68-15045785146f.Medium.jpg" alt="" /> You know, I've kinda' wondered about that theory as well. I can see lots and lots and lots of comets hitting the Earth back in the day, but there had to be another source for all of that water. I'm thinking steam, folks. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

BoJangles · Dec 29, 2008

Ahh ok great thanks,I think an easy test of this would be to calculate the statistical probability differential of comets hitting Jupiter opposed to earth, and look for a direct correlation in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere compared to that of earth, you could probably factor in the loss of water from earth, and the loss from Jupiter due to the sun. I think that’s a papper ready to be authored.Additionally, where is all the exotic elements produced from these comets on earth ?, additionally If there is so much water in the outer solar system, why do we even need comets, I think it’s much more probable that the solar system configuration has changed since its birth.Any thoughts on this?  <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> -------------- Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog. With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... *** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research *** </div>

jim48 · Dec 29, 2008

Replying to: <DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Ahh ok great thanks,I think an easy test of this would be to calculate the statistical probability differential of comets hitting Jupiter opposed to earth, and look for a direct correlation in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere compared to that of earth, you could probably factor in the loss of water from earth, and the loss from Jupiter due to the sun. I think that’s a papper ready to be authored.Additionally, where is all the exotic elements produced from these comets on earth ?, additionally If there is so much water in the outer solar system, why do we even need comets, I think it’s much more probable that the solar system configuration has changed since its birth.Any thoughts on this?  Posted by Manwh0re</DIV> I'm still liking my steam theory. Then the Earth began to cool... I mean come on, where did that much water come from? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

BoJangles · Dec 29, 2008

ahh ok, its hard to tell if your serious or not.But where did the steam come from? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> -------------- Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog. With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... *** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research *** </div>

baulten · Dec 29, 2008

Replying to: <DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>Ahh ok great thanks,I think an easy test of this would be to calculate the statistical probability differential of comets hitting Jupiter opposed to earth, and look for a direct correlation in the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere compared to that of earth, you could probably factor in the loss of water from earth, and the loss from Jupiter due to the sun. I think that’s a papper ready to be authored.Additionally, where is all the exotic elements produced from these comets on earth ?, additionally If there is so much water in the outer solar system, why do we even need comets, I think it’s much more probable that the solar system configuration has changed since its birth.Any thoughts on this?  Posted by Manwh0re</DIV>The young sun blasted away most of the water up to what's known as the frost line.  This is the point where water ice can exist without sublimating away.  A bit past the Asteroid belt, IIRC.  That's why it was rare in the inner solar system in the early days.  And, despite there being a lot of water, there is far more hydrogen.  Jupiter is mostly hydrogen, and more massive than all the other planets put together.  Now, the sun is more massive than this.  And a lot of the interplanetary median is hydrogen.  Most of the water ice is in comets and the outer planet moons.  There's a lot more hydrogen than water.And water is also partly hydrogen.  The formation of water in the solar system was primarily bounded by how much oxygen there was. I'm not sure what you mean by where are all the exotic elements created by these comets on Earth.  Comets are made up of rock, hydrocarbons, and ices.  All of those things are here on Earth.As for your study, without knowing the mass and distribution of the Oort Cloud,I think such a study would be very difficult.  I dont' know for sure.

BoJangles · Dec 29, 2008

Thanks again.As for the exotic elements, I mean the type found rarely on earth and is indicative of an impact, i.e. like the iridium layer, trace elements and such that can’t have formed on earth.Surely with all those comets and all the water, we should be able to detect some trace element anomalies (just a thought).In relation to the study, knowing what’s in the ort cloud would help, but I was mainly eluding to the following, if earth has x amount of water, and earth statically gets n times less impacts then say Jupiter, we should be able to total up the water we see in Jupiter’s atmosphere and correlate it to the water on earth.I.e. if we added up all the water vapour n Jupiter and it was less or not in ratio to the probability of impacts, I think we have a serious problem with our comet theory.If Jupiter attracts 2000 times more impacts than that of earth, it would be plausible that its atmosphere would have 2000 times the amount of water as earth. Now, of course there are some fudge factors that would need to be played with, and I don’t know if we can actually tabulate the volume of water on Jupiter can we? But buy using simple statistical models about gravity and probability a fairly easy number should be possible.  <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> -------------- Let me start out with the standard disclaimer ... I am an idiot, I know almost nothing, I haven’t taken calculus, I don’t work for NASA, and I am one-quarter Bulgarian sheep dog. With that out of the way, I have several stupid questions... *** A few months blogging can save a few hours in research *** </div>

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