Who Needs Asteroids? Earth Makes Its Own Water Deep Within The Mantle

4 February 2017

 - Life on Earth depends on the existence of water, but despite it covering some 70 percent of the planet’s surface, scientists have never really been sure where it all comes from.

While the popular view has been that icy asteroids or comets could have brought water to Earth billions of years ago in an epic collision that filled the planet’s oceans, a new study shows Earth’s inner regions had the necessary ingredients to make water all along, hidden deep underground.

According to new computer simulations, chemical reactions taking place in Earth’s upper mantle – which lies directly under the planet’s crust – could produce water from scratch under the right (read: extreme) conditions.