New research suggests that cosmic explosions, known as supernovas, may have given birth to Earth’s water supply. The findings indicate that the universe’s first stars likely produced significant amounts of water just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
Water could have formed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, according to new research. The first generation of stars in the universe likely produced significant amounts of water upon their deaths, just 100 million to 200 million years after the Big Bang.
Water is formed through a process known as hydrogen bonding, where two hydrogen atoms share their electrons with an oxygen atom.
This occurs naturally in the Earth's atmosphere when hydrogen and oxygen molecules combine.
The resulting water molecule has a bent shape due to the unequal sharing of electrons between the atoms.
Water formation is also influenced by atmospheric conditions, temperature, and humidity levels.
Computer simulations suggest that the essential condition for life existed far earlier than astronomers thought. Researchers ran simulations of two first-generation stars, one with 13 times the mass of the sun and another 200 times the sun’s mass. At the end of their short lives, these behemoths exploded as supernovas and flung out a shower of elements, including “oxygen and hydrogen”.
The simulations showed that as the supernovas’ ejected matter expanded and cooled, oxygen reacted with hydrogen and dihydrogen to make water vapor in the growing debris halos. This chemical process proceeded slowly due to the low density of atoms in the outer regions of the expanding supernova blasts. However, after a few million years, the dusty central cores of the supernova remnants had cooled enough for water to form.
The simulations revealed that water began amassing rapidly in the dense central cores of the supernova remnants. The smaller supernova produced a mass of water equivalent to a third of Earth’s total mass, while the larger one created enough water to equal 330 Earths. This concentrated water could potentially form a water world like our own.
The discovery suggests that the universe as a whole may have been habitable quite early on. However, water doesn’t get you all the way to life. The next question is how early can you combine carbon with hydrogen to get the molecules of life?
Life on Earth is believed to have originated around 3.5 billion years ago, with the earliest evidence of life found in ancient fossil records.
The most widely accepted theory is that life emerged from a primordial soup of organic compounds, which eventually gave rise to single-celled organisms.
These early cells likely evolved through a process known as abiogenesis, where simple molecules combined to form more complex structures.
Over time, these basic forms of life diversified and adapted, giving rise to the vast array of species that exist today.
- sciencenews.org | The universe’s first supernovas probably produced water
- threads.net | The supernova remnant Cassiopeia A is all that remains of a star ...
