New Model for How Earth's Oceans Formed

upstart writes:

You don't need alien asteroids, you just need a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and liquid hot magma:

A new research model shows that Earth's oceans could have formed from interactions between a hydrogen-rich early atmosphere and oxygen within the planet's magma.

The study from the multi-institution AETHER project also demonstrates why Earth's core is lighter than it should be, owing to the presence of gaseous hydrogen.

Edward Young, professor at the University of California Los Angeles, and colleagues propose that one of the protoplanets involved in the formation of Earth was heavier than thought. By maximizing its size to more than a fifth or third of Earth, the researchers show there would have been enough gravity to make the hydrogen-rich atmosphere hang around long enough to interact with the magma ocean, according to a paper published in Nature this week.

Prevailing theories explaining the abundance of water on Earth - oceans make up around 70 percent of the planet's surface - depend on the impacts of water-carrying asteroids.

[...] In a statement coinciding with the publication, co-author Anat Shahar, staff scientist and deputy for Research Advancement Earth and Planets Laboratory at Carnegie Science, said the inspiration for the new model came from studies of planets forming outside the solar system.

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