Ocean-like water in the Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2 |
| |
Authors: | Hartogh Paul Lis Dariusz C Bockelée-Morvan Dominique de Val-Borro Miguel Biver Nicolas Küppers Michael Emprechtinger Martin Bergin Edwin A Crovisier Jacques Rengel Miriam Moreno Raphael Szutowicz Slawomira Blake Geoffrey A |
| |
Institution: | Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. hartogh@mps.mpg.de |
| |
Abstract: | For decades, the source of Earth's volatiles, especially water with a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio (D/H) of (1.558?±?0.001)?×?10(-4), has been a subject of debate. The similarity of Earth's bulk composition to that of meteorites known as enstatite chondrites suggests a dry proto-Earth with subsequent delivery of volatiles by local accretion or impacts of asteroids or comets. Previous measurements in six comets from the Oort cloud yielded a mean D/H ratio of (2.96?±?0.25)?×?10(-4). The D/H value in carbonaceous chondrites, (1.4?±?0.1)?×?10(-4), together with dynamical simulations, led to models in which asteroids were the main source of Earth's water, with ≤10 per cent being delivered by comets. Here we report that the D/H ratio in the Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2, which originated in the Kuiper belt, is (1.61?±?0.24)?×?10(-4). This result substantially expands the reservoir of Earth ocean-like water to include some comets, and is consistent with the emerging picture of a complex dynamical evolution of the early Solar System. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 PubMed 等数据库收录! |
|