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Where Did Earth's Water Come From? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:01
Speaker 1: Hey, it's Thanksgiving week and we just wanted to say
0:03
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to our podcast. Thanks everyone, this
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Speaker 1: podcast has been amazing experience and it's only possible because
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Speaker 1: please rate us on iTunes or the I Heart radio app,
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Speaker 1: or leave us a comment at feedback at Daniel and
0:21
Speaker 1: Jorge dot com. Or show up at Jorge's house and
0:24
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving Day with a stack of bananas. He'll be very grateful.
0:28
Speaker 1: Or a big cosmic turkey, big cosmic turkey. Alright, Happy
0:32
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving everyone. Hey Daniel, you know that water that you're
0:43
Speaker 1: drinking right now? It's delicious and crisp and clear. Yes, yeah.
0:48
Speaker 1: Or that water that you took a shower with this morning,
0:50
Speaker 1: I mean, assuming you took a shower this morning. Yeah,
0:52
Speaker 1: that water is less crisp and clear right now, but yes.
0:54
Speaker 1: Or the water in the oceans and lakes and ponds
0:58
Speaker 1: and rivers all around the earth. Do you know the
1:01
Speaker 1: water you're making me have to go to the bathroom?
1:03
Speaker 1: Or hey, well I heard that all that water came
1:11
Speaker 1: from space. Are you telling me that I'm drinking and
1:14
Speaker 1: showering in space. Water space water water from space. But
1:20
Speaker 1: here's a big mystery. Nobody knows wearing space all this
1:24
Speaker 1: water came from. I mean like it's a huge ice
1:26
Speaker 1: water tanker out there somewhere. Yeah, or me a giant
1:29
Speaker 1: alien to the squirt gun, and they probably are going
1:32
Speaker 1: to come and get their water back eventually. We'd better
1:35
Speaker 1: drink it up or flush it down. And now that's
1:39
Speaker 1: nially won't want it back, you know what, You just
1:43
Speaker 1: keep your water Earth, We'll go find some more. Hi.
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm Jorge, and I'm Daniel, and this is Daniel. And
2:05
Speaker 1: Jorge explained the universe, the entire universe explained for you,
2:10
Speaker 1: all the parts of it, even the wet ones, the
2:13
Speaker 1: damp ones, the dry ones, the one you left out
2:15
Speaker 1: to drive it didn't actually drive very much well and
2:18
Speaker 1: gave you chafing the next day. All of that's going
2:20
Speaker 1: to be explained. Yeah, even the chafing part, even the chafing,
2:25
Speaker 1: even the uncomfortable bits. We are not shying away from that.
2:28
Speaker 1: To be on the episode, we're going to ask the
2:29
Speaker 1: question where did all the water on Earth come from?
2:37
Speaker 1: That's right. Earth is the only planet we know of
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Speaker 1: that has liquid water on the surface. Is it the
2:42
Speaker 1: only planet the universe with liquid water? And where did
2:44
Speaker 1: all this water come from? Yeah? Did somebody just opened
2:47
Speaker 1: a tap and fill filled up the oceans there? Or
2:49
Speaker 1: did it rain from outer space? Some interstellar RV just
2:54
Speaker 1: flushed their toilet onto the Earth billions of years ago.
2:56
Speaker 1: That's right. May we're just the where the gray water
3:00
Speaker 1: ump for the for interstellar space. Yeah, we're we're the
3:03
Speaker 1: latrine forces. Yeah. Well, it's a fascinating question because you know,
3:09
Speaker 1: the Earth has been around for four and a half
3:10
Speaker 1: billion years, and we're pretty sure there's been water on
3:13
Speaker 1: it for almost all of that time. For most of
3:15
Speaker 1: that time, because life has been around for more than
3:19
Speaker 1: four billion years and life needs water. Yeah, it's super important,
3:23
Speaker 1: but scientists don't really know where it came from. A Bradley,
3:27
Speaker 1: that's right, because when the Earth was forming, it was
3:29
Speaker 1: really hot and nasty and there was no atmosphere. So
3:32
Speaker 1: in the very early days of the Earth it must
3:35
Speaker 1: have been dry. It was being blasted by solar radiation
3:37
Speaker 1: and boiled off from the surface, So there's no water
3:40
Speaker 1: on the surface of the Earth in the beginning, but
3:42
Speaker 1: then there's water later, So it's a big mystery. Where
3:45
Speaker 1: did all the water on Earth come from? That's right.
3:49
Speaker 1: As usual, we went out and asked people in the street.
3:51
Speaker 1: Here's what you had to say. That's a good question.
3:54
Speaker 1: I never thought of that. Ice maybe, But then again,
3:57
Speaker 1: how did dice come about? I don't know. Oh, that's
4:02
Speaker 1: all right, I don't I don't know that. I already
4:04
Speaker 1: don't know. Comments that's my guess. Oh, I don't know.
4:08
Speaker 1: I think it was here, but I mean, because there's
4:14
Speaker 1: like glaciers and I don't know what that's I don't
4:18
Speaker 1: know if that's a good question. I don't know. All right,
4:21
Speaker 1: So nobody said where the latrine of the universe? That's good.
4:24
Speaker 1: It's not a popular opinion. Yeah, which means you own
4:26
Speaker 1: that idea, all right. That is your idea. In the future,
4:31
Speaker 1: when that one has proven true, you will be given
4:33
Speaker 1: soul credit for it. Yeah. Yeah. Or what I'm thinking of, like, um,
4:36
Speaker 1: septic tag. That's the word I was looking for, septic tag.
4:40
Speaker 1: I'm glad you just put that image into everybody's mind
4:43
Speaker 1: in um. The thing I really liked about these interviews,
4:47
Speaker 1: going around asking these people is that most of the
4:49
Speaker 1: people had never thought of this question at all. I mean,
4:52
Speaker 1: people have thought about the water cycle, evaporation and rain
4:55
Speaker 1: and toilet flushing, but nobody ever wondered where did the
4:58
Speaker 1: water come from in the first place. Well, yeah, it's
5:01
Speaker 1: such a natural thing, you know, like you we can't
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Speaker 1: even imagine life without water, so why would we wonder
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Speaker 1: where it came from? It's just there, right, Well, you
5:11
Speaker 1: look at other planets, though you don't see water like
5:13
Speaker 1: you see Look at Mars, it's not covered in liquid oceans, right,
5:16
Speaker 1: I guess I hadn't thought about that before, you know,
5:18
Speaker 1: like why is the Earth the only blue planet on
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Speaker 1: the Solar System? Like why why are we so special? Yeah? Well,
5:25
Speaker 1: Earth has some advantages, right, It's in the right zone.
5:28
Speaker 1: So in order to have liquid water, you need first
5:30
Speaker 1: of all to have water, but then you also need
5:33
Speaker 1: to have enough temperature to keep it liquid and enough
5:35
Speaker 1: pressure enough atmosphere to keep it from boiling off. You
5:39
Speaker 1: need to be in the zone to have water. That's right.
5:41
Speaker 1: The Earth was in the zone, the sloppy, wet happy
5:44
Speaker 1: zone of the Solar sytem the slipping slide zone. They
5:48
Speaker 1: should have called it the slipping slide zone, not the
5:50
Speaker 1: golden blocks. I mean, like when you go to at
5:52
Speaker 1: least water parks or like a sea world, and if
5:55
Speaker 1: you sit to close you might get splashed. Exactly, you're
5:58
Speaker 1: in the water zone, right, We're not actually the only planet, right,
6:03
Speaker 1: Like um, Mars had water at some point, right, because
6:06
Speaker 1: they found evidence of rivers and um they think maybe
6:10
Speaker 1: there's still water, maybe frozen at the ice caps of Mars.
6:14
Speaker 1: There's definitely water on Mars in the form of ice.
6:17
Speaker 1: The question is whether there's still liquid water. And they
6:19
Speaker 1: recently found some things that suggests there might be subterranean
6:23
Speaker 1: oceans on Mars. And there are other places in the
6:25
Speaker 1: Solar System to have oceans under like frozen ice or
6:28
Speaker 1: under the ground. But the Earth is the only place
6:30
Speaker 1: in the Solar System we know that has liquid water
6:32
Speaker 1: on the surface. Mars definitely has ice on its surface.
6:35
Speaker 1: You can see the polar ice caps which are partially
6:38
Speaker 1: SEO two and partially water. But there's definitely water on Mars,
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Speaker 1: just not liquid oceans. Let's break it down what you
6:43
Speaker 1: said before. So you say we need to have to
6:45
Speaker 1: write temperature and the right pressure. That's interesting, Like I
6:48
Speaker 1: can imagine if Earth was hotter, everything would boil off,
6:51
Speaker 1: but wouldn't if it even if it boils off, wouldn't
6:53
Speaker 1: it just hang around as clouds or water vapor? That's
6:56
Speaker 1: a great question. Yeah, so if the Earth is hot enough,
6:59
Speaker 1: then it will boil off all the water. It couldn't
7:01
Speaker 1: be liquid. But then you need something to keep it,
7:05
Speaker 1: to keep it around the Earth. Right, water vapor floats, right,
7:08
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of gravitational pull on water vapor,
7:11
Speaker 1: and so it's just going to drift out into space
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Speaker 1: unless there's something keeping it here, some blanket wrapping the
7:16
Speaker 1: Earth and keeping stuff on it. And that's the atmosphere.
7:18
Speaker 1: You mean, gravity wouldn't be enough to hold the water
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Speaker 1: vapor in. Yeah, I think if you if your Earth
7:23
Speaker 1: suddenly lost all of its atmosphere, then the water the
7:26
Speaker 1: oceans would boil into space. It would yeah, well I
7:31
Speaker 1: think it would take a while. It wouldn't be instantaneous,
7:34
Speaker 1: And you're right, probably we'd be first surrounded by a
7:36
Speaker 1: haze of water um as the oceans boiled off into
7:39
Speaker 1: nearby space. But we wouldn't be able to hold the
7:42
Speaker 1: hold the oceans to the Earth's surface without the atmosphere
7:45
Speaker 1: doing its job. So you're saying, because we're wrapped in
7:48
Speaker 1: a blanket of gas, other gases like air and nitrogen
7:52
Speaker 1: and oxygen that helps keep the water inside. That's right, Yeah,
7:58
Speaker 1: And that's why we're pretty sure Earth was dry in
8:00
Speaker 1: its early days, because there wasn't an atmosphere when Earth
8:02
Speaker 1: first formed. Okay, so step is bad. So how do
8:05
Speaker 1: we know that Earth wasn't just born with water? Why
8:08
Speaker 1: does water need to come from somewhere? Why couldn't we
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Speaker 1: just have water? So the Earth probably was born initially
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Speaker 1: with water, right, And the Earth is formed out of
8:16
Speaker 1: dust and gas on all this just rubble from earlier supernova, right,
8:20
Speaker 1: stuff from the inside of stars strewn out into space,
8:23
Speaker 1: collected together into a solar system to form the Sun
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Speaker 1: and all the other planets, and included in that was
8:29
Speaker 1: definitely some ice, right, because these stars burned and they
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Speaker 1: make oxygen and oxygen and reacts with hydrogen and you
8:35
Speaker 1: get water and out in space water becomes ice. So
8:38
Speaker 1: in the early days some of the ingredients that maybe
8:40
Speaker 1: Earth were definitely water. But you can press it down
8:43
Speaker 1: you form the Earth that gets really really hot, and
8:45
Speaker 1: the water bubbles up to the surface and there's no
8:47
Speaker 1: atmosphere and just boils away. In fact, all of the
8:51
Speaker 1: inner planets probably also got blasted by the sun so
8:54
Speaker 1: much solar radiation just fried all that ice and turned
8:58
Speaker 1: it into vapor, which floated away. So then the Earth
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Speaker 1: was born with water, but it probably probably dried it
9:04
Speaker 1: out right away exactly. Then we needed a source for water,
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Speaker 1: and it must have come from somewhere outside of the earth.
9:11
Speaker 1: That's right. It's like you leave your you know, shirt
9:13
Speaker 1: out to dry in the sun. Right, it gets all dry,
9:16
Speaker 1: and you come back a few hours later and it's
9:18
Speaker 1: wet again. You imagine somebody must have hosted down use
9:21
Speaker 1: source of water came and refreshed it. So that's the
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Speaker 1: most that's where we are. That's where we are now.
9:26
Speaker 1: Sure it is wet. Why is it wet if I
9:27
Speaker 1: left it out in the sun dazing exactly? Who emptied
9:30
Speaker 1: their latrine on my shirt? Slash planet? This is getting
9:35
Speaker 1: pretty uh dirty, it's getting pretty septic in here. Yeah,
9:44
Speaker 1: so water must have come from outside of the earth.
9:46
Speaker 1: But then, I guess do you have to we have
9:48
Speaker 1: to wait until we formed an atmosphere before water could
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Speaker 1: stick around. Yeah. Absolutely, you need an atmosphere to keep
9:55
Speaker 1: water on the service, so you need the service. Are
9:57
Speaker 1: cool down a little bit, right, A few engine million
10:00
Speaker 1: years or a hundred million years, and you also need atmosphere, okay,
10:04
Speaker 1: and where did the atmosphere come from? That's a good question. Um.
10:07
Speaker 1: A lot of it that people think came from volcanic eruptions.
10:11
Speaker 1: So it's just like CEO two vented from volcanoes. Some
10:14
Speaker 1: of it may have come from, you know, um asteroids
10:17
Speaker 1: being vaporized when they landed, and but mostly the early
10:21
Speaker 1: atmosphere was CEO two. We didn't have oxygen the atmosphere
10:23
Speaker 1: until later. So people are wondering about whether we could
10:26
Speaker 1: have made water on Earth from combining hydrogen oxygen In
10:30
Speaker 1: the very early days before life, there was no oxygen.
10:33
Speaker 1: You mean, like the rocks that formed the Earth maybe
10:35
Speaker 1: had gases inside of it, inside the rock, and then
10:39
Speaker 1: eventually that all kind of popped out to the surface
10:42
Speaker 1: and then we formed our atmosphere and possibly also water. Yeah,
10:47
Speaker 1: so the initial rocks definitely had some gas in there,
10:49
Speaker 1: and then you know, it bubbles up like a like
10:51
Speaker 1: a big belt and comes out of volcanoes and forms
10:54
Speaker 1: an early atmosphere. UM. And so so we didn't have
10:58
Speaker 1: what we needed to keep the water early on. So
11:00
Speaker 1: we know that we didn't that we couldn't have kept
11:02
Speaker 1: the water early on, we must have lost it. And
11:04
Speaker 1: so now we've been then and then we formed the
11:06
Speaker 1: capacity to keep the water around to build a canteen.
11:09
Speaker 1: So the earth burped formed the coat around it, which said, hey,
11:13
Speaker 1: now we can hold water. That's right open for business,
11:17
Speaker 1: burp Okay. So there's different possibilities then, Um, if the
11:34
Speaker 1: water didn't come from the Earth and we didn't make
11:36
Speaker 1: it with our own gases, Um, what are some of
11:40
Speaker 1: the ways that Earth could have received this water that
11:43
Speaker 1: we shower in? Now? Well, we're pretty sure it has
11:45
Speaker 1: to come from inside our solar system because everything else
11:47
Speaker 1: is just too far away, and that would be too
11:49
Speaker 1: incredible and probably the subject of an awesome science fiction novel.
11:53
Speaker 1: Somebody should write about extra solar water. Star water, star water,
11:59
Speaker 1: star waters, Return of the East too, Oh, return the
12:06
Speaker 1: water strikes back. Um, But there's plenty of water in
12:10
Speaker 1: the Solar system, right. The outer planets also have huge
12:14
Speaker 1: contributions of ice, Like two thirds of Uranus and Neptune
12:17
Speaker 1: are probably made of ice. Wait, two thirds of Uranus
12:21
Speaker 1: is made out of water. That's right, Uranus, And you
12:26
Speaker 1: know the comets and the asteroids and everything sort of
12:29
Speaker 1: outside of the asteroid belt, a little further away, out
12:32
Speaker 1: of the inner planets, has huge amounts of ice in it,
12:35
Speaker 1: and they're far enough away from the Sun that they
12:37
Speaker 1: weren't blasted by the solar radiation and so it's stayed
12:40
Speaker 1: as ice. So if you're looking for like the raw material,
12:43
Speaker 1: there's plenty of ice out there in the Solar System.
12:45
Speaker 1: The question is how does it get from out there
12:48
Speaker 1: a comet, an asteroid, a chunk of a planet and
12:51
Speaker 1: land on Earth. Right, That's that's the mystery. It's not
12:56
Speaker 1: like water is rare in the Solar System. There's a
12:58
Speaker 1: lot of water in the Solar City. The question is
13:01
Speaker 1: just like, how did it get to our planet, which
13:03
Speaker 1: is sitting pretty close to the Sun, that's right. Yeah,
13:06
Speaker 1: since our planet got boiled dry, how did it get refilled?
13:09
Speaker 1: And how do you get that water from the outer
13:10
Speaker 1: parts of the Solar System into the inner part of
13:13
Speaker 1: the Solar System. Okay, so you said some possibilities there,
13:16
Speaker 1: like some comets could have brought it, asteroids could have
13:19
Speaker 1: brought it. Yeah, so comets was a really favorite hypothesis
13:22
Speaker 1: for a while. Um. I also think it's pretty awesome,
13:25
Speaker 1: right to imagine like imagine a dry earth, and then
13:31
Speaker 1: and then how could you get enough water to make oceans?
13:34
Speaker 1: I mean, oceans are just it's mind bogglingly vast. I
13:37
Speaker 1: mean I live by the Pacific. Every time I see it,
13:39
Speaker 1: I just can't imagine how much water that is. I
13:42
Speaker 1: mean miles deepen like the size of the ice cube
13:45
Speaker 1: that must have crashed into Earth for there to be
13:48
Speaker 1: so much water, Yes, But then you think about it
13:50
Speaker 1: other ways, and it's actually not that much water. I
13:53
Speaker 1: mean it covers like the Earth's surface, right, but it's
13:57
Speaker 1: really thin layer compared to the size of the Earth.
14:00
Speaker 1: The depth of the oceans is almost nothing. Wow, It's like, um,
14:04
Speaker 1: it's vast and immense, but at the same time, with
14:07
Speaker 1: the right perspective, it's like a little wet coating on
14:09
Speaker 1: a big rock. That's right, if you held the Earth
14:12
Speaker 1: in your hands, right, all the things that we think
14:14
Speaker 1: are big features of the Earth, right, the mountains in Asia,
14:18
Speaker 1: the deep deserts and all that stuff, the oceans, these
14:21
Speaker 1: are tiny little details on the scale of the Earth. Right. Remember,
14:24
Speaker 1: the Earth is eight thousand miles in diameter. Mount Everest,
14:27
Speaker 1: for example, is what six miles high? The Marianas trenches
14:31
Speaker 1: like eight miles deep. These things are tiny features. The
14:34
Speaker 1: Earth would feel like a smooth like an eight ball
14:37
Speaker 1: in your hand, maybe with a little bit of dampness
14:39
Speaker 1: where where the oceans are, so you don't actually need
14:42
Speaker 1: that much water, because if the ocean is only eight
14:44
Speaker 1: miles deep at its deepest, and the Earth is eight
14:48
Speaker 1: thousand miles in radius, then we're really just talking about
14:52
Speaker 1: like a little tiny coating on the surface of the Earth. Right, Yeah,
14:56
Speaker 1: it's a thin film of water on the surface of
14:58
Speaker 1: the Earth. Of course, it's but jillion of gallons of water, right,
15:01
Speaker 1: but it's not that much compared to the size of
15:03
Speaker 1: stuff that's out there, So you really just need a
15:06
Speaker 1: few big blobs of ice and boom you have an ocean. Right,
15:10
Speaker 1: So how big space glaciers have you seen that anywhere? Like,
15:14
Speaker 1: has anyone calculated how big of an ice cube was
15:17
Speaker 1: it crash into Earth for us who have as much
15:20
Speaker 1: water as we have. Yeah, it's not that much volume,
15:22
Speaker 1: I mean compared to like the size of those ice planets, right,
15:25
Speaker 1: Neptune and uh and Urinus. It's a tiny little bit.
15:28
Speaker 1: You just need to break off a little piece. And
15:30
Speaker 1: there are asteroids out there in the asteroid belt that
15:32
Speaker 1: are big enough for sure, and anyway, so it's it's
15:35
Speaker 1: fun to look out at the ocean and imagine, like, wow,
15:38
Speaker 1: this whole ocean could just be like melted comets. Right,
15:41
Speaker 1: imagine how many comments that would take. But melted comments, yeah, exactly,
15:44
Speaker 1: Let's go for a swim in the melted comets. Let's
15:47
Speaker 1: stop calling them oceans or seas, Let's just call them
15:50
Speaker 1: melted comments. Right, except that nowadays we're pretty sure it's
15:54
Speaker 1: not comets. I mean, it's it's an open question. The
15:57
Speaker 1: short answer is nobody knows. But the first idea was comments,
16:00
Speaker 1: because people know the comments are mostly made of ice,
16:03
Speaker 1: so they thought, well, if enough comments hit the Earth,
16:05
Speaker 1: maybe that would explain it. As a crazy idea, is
16:08
Speaker 1: that sounds right, It actually would explain it because the
16:10
Speaker 1: comment is just a giant flying ice ball. It's a
16:14
Speaker 1: huge snowball, exactly, and that's orbiting the Sun. And that's
16:17
Speaker 1: how they get their tail, is that they the snow
16:19
Speaker 1: is melting and spraying, and you can see when they
16:21
Speaker 1: come into the inner part of the Solar system. The
16:23
Speaker 1: Sun does to a comment what it did to the
16:25
Speaker 1: Earth billions of years ago. It fries it and dries it. Oh,
16:28
Speaker 1: I like that. Fries it and dries it. That's the
16:32
Speaker 1: motto from my um fast food Chaine, which I'm opening
16:35
Speaker 1: soon and new product now on sale in the home
16:38
Speaker 1: shopping network fried and dry it and dry it com
16:44
Speaker 1: um It's called Yeah, it's called the suns. I don't
16:47
Speaker 1: even have to ship you anything and say lead outside,
16:49
Speaker 1: we'll be fried and dry. It's just hope. Nobody even
16:53
Speaker 1: drump UMSI latrina. So people thought comments was the explanation
17:00
Speaker 1: for a while. But then they went out and they
17:01
Speaker 1: measured some commets, and they looked at the ice on
17:04
Speaker 1: the comets, and they discovered that the ice on Earth
17:06
Speaker 1: is different. The water on Earth is different from the
17:08
Speaker 1: kind of water that you find on those commets. Wait,
17:11
Speaker 1: so you we can tell what kind of water is
17:14
Speaker 1: in a commet. First of all, there's different kinds of water.
17:17
Speaker 1: That's like, yeah, regular water, light water, dark water. There's
17:22
Speaker 1: mineral water, there's bubbly water. There's vitamin water. Is that
17:26
Speaker 1: what you mean? Smart water? Life water water? So we
17:30
Speaker 1: we know that water is made out of H two.
17:32
Speaker 1: Oh right, that's hydrogen and oxygen. But there are actually
17:35
Speaker 1: a few different kinds of hydrogen. It depends on how
17:38
Speaker 1: many protons and neutrons. So you can make it out
17:41
Speaker 1: of normal hydrogen, or you can make it out of deuterium,
17:44
Speaker 1: which has an extra neutron in it. And the ratio
17:47
Speaker 1: of like normal hydrogen to deterium um you find in
17:50
Speaker 1: your water tells you something about where the water was made. Specifically,
17:54
Speaker 1: it tells you how cold it was when the ice
17:57
Speaker 1: was formed. What do you mean, how cool? How would
18:01
Speaker 1: the coldness effect which kind of type of hydrogen you
18:05
Speaker 1: would use to make water? Well, the water and ice
18:08
Speaker 1: is a really strange thing. It's like huge fields of
18:10
Speaker 1: study of people studying how ice is formed and the
18:13
Speaker 1: ice crystals and and it's a really complicated subject that
18:16
Speaker 1: we still don't understand. But that's a topic for a
18:18
Speaker 1: whole other day. But the temperature at which the ice
18:22
Speaker 1: forms determines how much of different kinds of hydrogen like
18:25
Speaker 1: to get into the ice, and and what and what
18:28
Speaker 1: fraction and like to mix together. And so the colder
18:31
Speaker 1: it is, the more you you get deterium as a
18:34
Speaker 1: part of the ice. And so you can see where
18:37
Speaker 1: ice was made, because the further away from the sun
18:40
Speaker 1: it was made, the more of this deterium it has
18:42
Speaker 1: in it, right, it will be a different flavor depending
18:45
Speaker 1: on where in the Solar System it became water. Yeah,
18:49
Speaker 1: I don't know if it actually tastes different. I've never
18:51
Speaker 1: licked a commet before. Have Have you licked a common hore?
18:54
Speaker 1: Feels like something I should know about you already? Maybe, yeah,
18:57
Speaker 1: Well that's why you need to fry it and drive
18:59
Speaker 1: it space commets, fried giant and then lick it. I
19:05
Speaker 1: don't know if it tastes different. I don't know if
19:07
Speaker 1: it's healthy or not. But the water on Earth has
19:09
Speaker 1: a very particular ratio of this deterium, and the stuff
19:12
Speaker 1: out in space is a different ratio. And so people
19:16
Speaker 1: landed on commets and got samples from comets, and they
19:19
Speaker 1: measured the water on these comets, and they found out
19:21
Speaker 1: whoa this These comets were formed out in the deep
19:24
Speaker 1: reaches of space. That ice is different from the ice
19:27
Speaker 1: we found here on Earth. So it couldn't have come
19:31
Speaker 1: from a comment. The thing is, we haven't measured that
19:33
Speaker 1: many comets. It's not like easy to go up and
19:35
Speaker 1: sample commets. So the first few measurements people got they thought,
19:39
Speaker 1: oh wait, this is totally different. And then they measured
19:41
Speaker 1: another commet and it had water, which was pretty consistent
19:44
Speaker 1: with Earth. So you don't have a whole lot of
19:46
Speaker 1: samples of comets, but it makes sense if the water
19:49
Speaker 1: from comets is colder, was formed when it was colder,
19:53
Speaker 1: and so it has a different ratio, and so it's
19:55
Speaker 1: a sort of a different flavor, as you say, than
19:56
Speaker 1: the water we found on Earth. That makes comments less
19:59
Speaker 1: likely to be the source of water on Earth. Well,
20:02
Speaker 1: this is a perfect point to take a break. So
20:18
Speaker 1: they checked off comets could not be the source of
20:21
Speaker 1: water on Earth, right. Well, another really good possibility are asteroids,
20:26
Speaker 1: because asteroids are much closer right there's the whole asteroid
20:29
Speaker 1: belt out there in the Solar System. Comets come from
20:31
Speaker 1: much further out right, the Arch cloud, these frozen objects
20:34
Speaker 1: deep beyond Pluto. M Asteroids are hanging out here in
20:37
Speaker 1: the Solar System with us, and so they have a
20:41
Speaker 1: ratio of deteriorm normal hydrogen that's much closer to what
20:44
Speaker 1: we find on Earth, and so they are much better candidate.
20:47
Speaker 1: I mean, there's like big chunks of ice in the
20:49
Speaker 1: asteroid belt. Is that what you mean? Or is the
20:51
Speaker 1: ice kind of mixed in with the asteroids both. I mean,
20:54
Speaker 1: every asteroid is different, but they think on average asteroids
20:58
Speaker 1: are like water no hitting. Yeah, yeah, and they've even
21:02
Speaker 1: found um asteroids that have liquid water inside them inside
21:06
Speaker 1: of the rock. Yeah, the water can survive inside the rock.
21:10
Speaker 1: But also the just the asteroids are there's snowballs. Also,
21:14
Speaker 1: they have you know, chunks of ice in them as well,
21:16
Speaker 1: less so than comets, but they're more rock, but there
21:18
Speaker 1: are big chunks of ice out there. I guess they're
21:21
Speaker 1: out in space, which is like a big freezer, so
21:24
Speaker 1: they would maybe naturally pick up any water that's floating
21:27
Speaker 1: around exactly exactly. Now, somebody out there listening might be thinking, well, still,
21:32
Speaker 1: asteroids are further out there than Earth, right. If the
21:34
Speaker 1: water came from the asteroid belt or from stuff out
21:37
Speaker 1: there like Neptune, then shouldn't it still have a different ratio?
21:40
Speaker 1: And how would that explain the water we see here
21:42
Speaker 1: on Earth. Um. So, to that listener, yeah, good question.
21:47
Speaker 1: That's basically the heart of the question right now. People
21:50
Speaker 1: don't understand that that's what we're all thinking. Yeah, wait,
21:54
Speaker 1: so you're saying the water on Earth still doesn't match
21:57
Speaker 1: the water in the closer asteroid belt. It's still a
22:00
Speaker 1: different kind of water. That's right. Some asteroids seem to
22:03
Speaker 1: match it, but other asteroids don't. And so some people think, oh,
22:06
Speaker 1: we've understood it. It's definitely from these asteroids. Other people think, no,
22:10
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not well explained because, um, some of
22:13
Speaker 1: those many of those asteroids have a different balance of
22:15
Speaker 1: deterior and hydrogen. So it's not a perfect match. It's
22:19
Speaker 1: not a perfect match. Yeah. So it's still like the
22:21
Speaker 1: DNA evidence in a c s I episode. That's it's like, yes,
22:26
Speaker 1: your honor, the water came from this asteroid. This asteroid
22:30
Speaker 1: is guilty of dumping itself on Earth and providing for
22:33
Speaker 1: all life. Yeah, no, we should be congratulated. What about
22:36
Speaker 1: calling it guilty? Right? I mean without this, these asteroids
22:38
Speaker 1: or whoever providing the water, that none of us would
22:41
Speaker 1: be here talking about it. So it's not possible for
22:47
Speaker 1: the water to have come to Earth and then change
22:50
Speaker 1: somehow in terms of the ratio of of the different
22:53
Speaker 1: kinds of water. It's not possible, not that I'm aware of.
22:56
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Wow, Okay, so it's still a mystery.
23:00
Speaker 1: Then it's still a mystery, And um, there's one fun idea,
23:03
Speaker 1: which is that maybe the Solar system was arranged differently
23:07
Speaker 1: when this ice was made. It could have been that
23:09
Speaker 1: that Saturn and Jupiter used to be much closer to
23:12
Speaker 1: the Sun, and the asteroid belt was also much closer,
23:16
Speaker 1: and that's when that ice formed. And then m Saturn
23:19
Speaker 1: and Jupiter had a near miss which caused them to
23:22
Speaker 1: both like jump out further and settle in further out
23:25
Speaker 1: orbits and pull the asteroids with them. And so it
23:27
Speaker 1: could be that the asteroids were formed when they were
23:30
Speaker 1: closer to the Sun, so it was a little warmer,
23:33
Speaker 1: and that's when that water was formed, and then it
23:35
Speaker 1: got moved out into the asteroid belt. Um, but people
23:40
Speaker 1: don't really know. There's a lot of crazy ideas about
23:42
Speaker 1: to explain the configuration of the solar system. Oh you
23:46
Speaker 1: mean water we have on Earth could come from a
23:49
Speaker 1: different solar system, basically like back when the Solar system
23:52
Speaker 1: was different, and that would explain why it's different than
23:55
Speaker 1: the water that we see out in the asteroid belt. Yeah,
23:58
Speaker 1: not a different solar systems than another one, but a
24:01
Speaker 1: solar system that's arranged in a different order, and so
24:04
Speaker 1: that a younger, hotter sem literally younger hotter, tighter, wetter
24:09
Speaker 1: solar system. It's just got an s f W. People
24:17
Speaker 1: are measuring this stuff and trying to figure it out,
24:20
Speaker 1: and it's a hard problem to solve because the information
24:23
Speaker 1: is out there, but it's literally out there, right. It's
24:25
Speaker 1: not easy to go and say, what is the water
24:28
Speaker 1: like on Neptune, what is the water like on Urinus?
24:30
Speaker 1: What is the water like around Jupiter? Right, It's not
24:33
Speaker 1: like we have that data. But it's so frustrating sometimes
24:36
Speaker 1: from the science point of view, because we know that
24:38
Speaker 1: data is out there, and if you could just go
24:39
Speaker 1: out there and measure this and a quick measure of
24:41
Speaker 1: this and a quick measure of that, then you could
24:43
Speaker 1: know so much about the history of the solar system
24:46
Speaker 1: and and how it formed. And to me, this is
24:48
Speaker 1: really important stuff because it helps us think about the
24:51
Speaker 1: question is there likely to be another planet with water
24:54
Speaker 1: on it? I mean, it's sort of an elaborate thing,
24:56
Speaker 1: like imagine how that whole scenario is true that in
24:59
Speaker 1: order to get ice on the in order to get
25:01
Speaker 1: liquid oceans on the Earth, you have to have a
25:03
Speaker 1: solar system range this way one at one point and
25:05
Speaker 1: then later be arranged another way, and the water to
25:08
Speaker 1: get transported via these asteroids. It's really complicated, right, It's
25:11
Speaker 1: like a Rube Goldberg machine. To me, it's like having
25:15
Speaker 1: a snowball's chance, you know, and the bolls chance in space.
25:20
Speaker 1: And yeah, and it makes it seem less likely that
25:23
Speaker 1: another planet out there is going to be found with
25:25
Speaker 1: liquid oceans, if that, in fact is all necessary, right,
25:29
Speaker 1: There could be a thousand other ways though, for water
25:31
Speaker 1: to end up on a planet. You mean, like, the
25:33
Speaker 1: only reason we are here, you and I are here,
25:36
Speaker 1: and that any life is here is this random collision
25:39
Speaker 1: of two objects in the vastness of space. Yeah. Well,
25:43
Speaker 1: probably more than two objects. Probably a lot of asteroids
25:45
Speaker 1: rained down on Earth and deposited their water. But yeah, okay, yeah, exactly.
25:51
Speaker 1: But it could also just be due to the randomness
25:53
Speaker 1: of Jupiter and Saturn's orbits, you know right now the
25:56
Speaker 1: orbit further out from us, and they serve to shield
25:59
Speaker 1: us actually for a lot of stuff like um, also,
26:01
Speaker 1: a lot of comets don't hit the Earth because they're
26:04
Speaker 1: pulled away by Jupiter. Jupiter acts like a big linebacker
26:07
Speaker 1: out there, knocking out big objects that might otherwise hit
26:09
Speaker 1: the Earth, and so um, it makes it harder for
26:12
Speaker 1: us to be hit by commets, so the particular arrangement
26:15
Speaker 1: of our solar system might be absolutely necessary to get
26:18
Speaker 1: water onto the Earth. Um wow, it really makes you
26:22
Speaker 1: think how precious life is. Like life came about an
26:25
Speaker 1: Earth because of this really tiny, almost invisible, thin film
26:30
Speaker 1: of water on this giant rock that could easily evaporate
26:35
Speaker 1: if the right condisions are not mad, and that needed
26:38
Speaker 1: to have come from some other part of the solar system.
26:41
Speaker 1: Like that just seems incredible that we're here at all. Absolutely.
26:46
Speaker 1: You know, when I'm cooking, for example, I'm always skeptical
26:48
Speaker 1: of a recipe that doesn't just let you dump all
26:50
Speaker 1: the stuff in together at once and mix it up. Right.
26:52
Speaker 1: That's how I like to cook, Like, just put it.
26:56
Speaker 1: You're skeptical. Yeah, When when a recipe is like now wait,
27:00
Speaker 1: don't add the egg whites until this step, I'm like,
27:02
Speaker 1: that's not necessary anyway. Maybe that's why my souflet doesn't.
27:08
Speaker 1: But that's basically the recipe for the Earth, right, It's
27:10
Speaker 1: like mix a bunch of rock, compressed it together, wait
27:13
Speaker 1: a few million years, then shower it with asteroids. Otherwise
27:17
Speaker 1: you're not going to get this perfect thin film of water.
27:19
Speaker 1: That allows life to grow. Oh my goodness, that's the
27:22
Speaker 1: Earth Souflat recipe. People are out there looking to see
27:28
Speaker 1: if there are other planets that have water on them,
27:30
Speaker 1: and there's a particular signature of liquid water on a planet,
27:33
Speaker 1: you can tell from the kind of light that passes
27:35
Speaker 1: through the atmosphere of a distant planet. But so far
27:39
Speaker 1: we've never identified another planet that has liquid water on it,
27:42
Speaker 1: even outside the Solar System. So even if we look
27:44
Speaker 1: for extra planets and other Solar systems outside of ours,
27:49
Speaker 1: do we still haven't seen any with water, No conclusive
27:51
Speaker 1: evidence of liquid water on any planet anywhere other than
27:55
Speaker 1: the Earth on the surface. There are a few places
27:59
Speaker 1: that have liquid water are under the surface, like Europa,
28:02
Speaker 1: one of those moons I'm pretty sure has a huge
28:05
Speaker 1: ocean under a surface of ice. You mean it's one
28:09
Speaker 1: of the wounds of Jupiter, right, Yeah, so it's not
28:11
Speaker 1: that far away, not that far away, yeah, And it's
28:14
Speaker 1: this huge liquid water ocean, but it's under a thin
28:18
Speaker 1: coating of ice that protects it, and the under the
28:21
Speaker 1: ice is the water, which is kept warm by various
28:24
Speaker 1: activities inside the planet, you know, gravitational stress from Jupiter, etcetera.
28:28
Speaker 1: Various sources of energy internally to keep the water um
28:31
Speaker 1: from freezing, so it's not just covered with ice, and
28:35
Speaker 1: then you have this layer of ice that protects it
28:37
Speaker 1: from cosmic radiation. All sorts of stuff sort of acts
28:39
Speaker 1: like an atmosphere. So I imagine an ice atmosphere, an
28:42
Speaker 1: ice smith fear, and so people think there could be,
28:46
Speaker 1: for example, life in that ocean, right, that's a huge
28:49
Speaker 1: pile of liquid water. They would be called Europeens. It
28:53
Speaker 1: would be called Europens, and they would probably want to
28:56
Speaker 1: be part of the European Community European Union, which would
29:01
Speaker 1: be a branding disaster. That would be that PR committee
29:04
Speaker 1: would need to get to work. Stat But so far,
29:07
Speaker 1: no water on the surface anywhere other than Earth, but
29:09
Speaker 1: we'll keep looking. It's a cool mystery makes my mouth
29:13
Speaker 1: water exactly, So next time you really let my appetite
29:16
Speaker 1: for knowledge. So next time you go out there and
29:20
Speaker 1: flush your toilet, think about the cosmic journey that those
29:23
Speaker 1: water molecules took. Yeah, writing an asteroid from deep into space,
29:29
Speaker 1: traveling trillions of miles, hitting the Earth, joining the ocean,
29:34
Speaker 1: nestling life, evaporating into a cloud, raining down in a reservoir,
29:40
Speaker 1: all just to flush down your toilet. Sometimes in science
29:45
Speaker 1: we ask questions about the simple things around us and
29:47
Speaker 1: don't have good answers, like where does all the water
29:50
Speaker 1: come from? So there are great mysteries all around us. Well,
29:54
Speaker 1: signing enough, see you next time. Yeah, if you still
30:04
Speaker 1: have a question after listening to all these explanations, please
30:07
Speaker 1: drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.
30:09
Speaker 1: You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at
30:12
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or email us at
30:16
Speaker 1: Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com.