TY - JOUR
T1 - Accretion disc origin of the Earth's water
AU - Vattuone, Luca
AU - Smerieri, Marco
AU - Savio, Letizia
AU - Asaduzzaman, Abu Md
AU - Muralidharan, Krishna
AU - Drake, Michael J.
AU - Rocca, Mario
PY - 2013/7/13
Y1 - 2013/7/13
N2 - Earth's water is conventionally believed to be delivered by comets or wet asteroids after the Earth formed. However, their elemental and isotopic properties are inconsistent with those of the Earth. It was thus proposed that water was introduced by adsorption onto grains in the accretion disc prior to planetary growth, with bonding energies so high as to be stable under high-temperature conditions. Here, we show both by laboratory experiments and numerical simulations that water adsorbs dissociatively on the olivine {100} surface at the temperature (approx. 500-1500 K) and water pressure (approx. 10-8 bar) expected for the accretion disc, leaving an OH adlayer that is stable at least up to 900 K. This may result in the formation of many Earth oceans, provided that a viable mechanism to produce water from hydroxyl exists. This adsorption process must occur in all disc environments around young stars. The inevitable conclusion is thatwater should be prevalent on terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around other stars.
AB - Earth's water is conventionally believed to be delivered by comets or wet asteroids after the Earth formed. However, their elemental and isotopic properties are inconsistent with those of the Earth. It was thus proposed that water was introduced by adsorption onto grains in the accretion disc prior to planetary growth, with bonding energies so high as to be stable under high-temperature conditions. Here, we show both by laboratory experiments and numerical simulations that water adsorbs dissociatively on the olivine {100} surface at the temperature (approx. 500-1500 K) and water pressure (approx. 10-8 bar) expected for the accretion disc, leaving an OH adlayer that is stable at least up to 900 K. This may result in the formation of many Earth oceans, provided that a viable mechanism to produce water from hydroxyl exists. This adsorption process must occur in all disc environments around young stars. The inevitable conclusion is thatwater should be prevalent on terrestrial planets in the habitable zone around other stars.
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U2 - 10.1098/rsta.2011.0585
DO - 10.1098/rsta.2011.0585
M3 - Article
C2 - 23734050
AN - SCOPUS:84878813749
SN - 1364-503X
VL - 371
JO - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
JF - Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
IS - 1994
M1 - 20110585
ER -