Personally, I love it when science is pitted against science and the epic battle that it results in. It never fails to advance our understanding of our home and Universe just that little bit more. And such is the battle I bring this time.
The fight over the origins of water on our planet has spanned for centuries, I can imagine, since we learned science. Where did it come from? We aren’t sure, but there are two prevailing theories that are imminently possible: astroscience’s outside interference or geoscience’s native origin. Those two theories have plagued scientific minds for a long time.
Now, the outside interference of comets has prevailed for years and a lot has been written about this theory, in both science and science fiction. To rehash all of the literature on the subject would bring this little blog post to a staggering word count.
I want to look at the other theory, of native origin. Water trapped in the stones under our very feet from the time our system formed, released through volcanoes or natural degassing. Without a doubt, native water origin has some very good arguments for it. A true contender in this war of a question. I love it. The best part is the mechanisms that bring about our stunning necessity of life.
Better yet is all the ways in which this theory could enrich a sci-fi plot involving efforts to heal a planet’s massive water issues. Not enough water? Volcanoes could be the answer, or forced extraction from under the very crust of a planet. Water contamination? Speeding up the recycling process through the hot mantle could fix that. Or creating a process that could mimic the same. What about the people who are on top of the land your going to force back under the world? Well, that could get interesting, especially if no one told them what’s going to happen in the rush to fix a planet.
And what this information can add to terra-forming will be very fun.
-T.A. Creech
Science in the pursuit of Fiction.