Scientists have discovered that interplanetary dust particles are capable of delivering organics and water to planets like Earth, according to a University of Hawaii-School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology press release.
Interplanetary dust comes from comets, leftover debris after the birth of a solar system, and asteroids and then pours on Earth and other Solar System bodies.
"It is a thrilling possibility that this influx of dust has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics needed for the eventual origin of life on Earth and possibly Mars," said Hope Ishii, an Associate Researcher in the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) at UHM SOEST and study's co-author.
Researchers ranged from the Hawaii-School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and University of California - Berkeley.
This method of sending organics and water simultaneously would also work for exoplanets. This mechanism could technically work for any planetary system, according to the press release.
"Perhaps more exciting," said Ishii, "interplanetary dust, especially dust from primitive asteroids and comets, has long been known to carry organic carbon species that survive entering the Earth's atmosphere, and we have now demonstrated that it also carries solar-wind-generated water. So we have shown for the first time that water and organics can be delivered together."
Scientists were able to detect water produced by solar-wind irradiation in space-weathered rims on silicate minerals in interplanetary dust particles by using a transmission electron microscope, according to the press release.
The study does not say how much water has been transferred to Earth however from IDPs.
"In no way do we suggest that it was sufficient to form oceans, for example," said Ishii. "However, the relevance of our work is not the origin of the Earth's oceans but that we have shown continuous, co-delivery of water and organics intimately intermixed."
Scientists will now work to estimate water abundances transferred to Earth by IDPs, according to the press release.
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