Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 48

THE WATER YOU’RE
DRINKING COULD
BE OLDER THAN
THE SUN
We all know that our Earth is old, and
so is our sun. But did you ever think that
water could be older than the both of
them?
It has always been a mystery on how
our earth came to be, and how water
became part of it. But there has been
one prevailing theory that says that
4.6 billion years ago, water came to our
earth from ice specks that were floating
in a cosmic cloud even before our sun
went ablaze.
According
to
astrophysicists’
calculations, half of all the water on
earth may be from that interstellar gas.
This could mean that the same water
we are drinking and the bodies of water
on our earth may be millions of years
older than our solar system!
The astrophysicists believe that some
of the ancient ice made it through
the solar system’s chaotic creation and
found its way to earth. Researchers
analysed the oceans’ water molecules
for clues of their history.
The clue was through finding “heavy
water”. Heavy water has water molecules
that contain hydrogen’s twin—
deuterium. Water rich with deuterium
is found on other planets and moons,
even here on our world, but researchers
aren’t really sure where they came from.
An idea is that most of the heavy water
formed in the interstellar cloud then
found its way across the solar system.
The researchers concluded that
remnants of that ice remain scattered
in our solar system. This includes the
moon, different planets, and even your
water bottle. So, let’s drink to that!
Cheers!
48
SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
Photo by IOP
The ice floating on the water is made from normal water (H2O), while the ice
on the bottom is made from heavy water (D2O)
Photo by Scind