The Water In Your Bottle Might Be Older Than The Sun

27 September 2014

 - A new study in the journal Science suggests that much of the water on Earth and throughout our solar system likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space. If so, it means that water may be more widespread in planetary systems than previously thought.

The researchers’ work addresses a debate about just how far back in galactic history our planet and our solar system’s water formed. Were the molecules in comet ices and terrestrial oceans born with the system itself—in the planet-forming disk of dust and gas that circled the young sun 4.6 billion years ago? Or did the water originate even earlier, in the cold, ancient molecular cloud that spawned the sun and that planet-forming disk?

The new research suggests that between 30 and 50 percent came from a molecular cloud. That would make it roughly a million years older than the solar system.