Interplanetary dust

Interplanetary dust particles carry water and organics

Mars had liquid water 4 billion years ago

January 29, 2014

Interplanetary dust particles carry water generated with hydrogen solar wind + oxygen from silicate mineral grains (credit: John Bradley)

Interplanetary dust particles could be delivering water and organics to the Earth and other terrestrial planets scientists have found.

Interplanetary dust — dust that has come from comets, asteroids, and leftover debris from the birth of the solar system — continually rains down on the Earth and other Solar System bodies.

These particles are bombarded by the solar wind, predominately hydrogen ions.  This ion bombardment knocks the atoms out of order in the silicate mineral crystal and leaves behind oxygen that is more available to react with hydrogen to create water molecules.

“It is a thrilling possibility that this influx of dust has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics needed for the eventual origin of life on Earth and possibly Mars,” said Hope Ishii, new Associate Researcher in the Hawaiʻi Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP) at the University of Hawaiʻi and co-author of the study./.../