I'm a science journalist and host of Cosmic Controversy (brucedorminey.podbean.com) as well as author of 'Distant Wanderers: the Search for Planets Beyond the Solar System.' I primarily cover aerospace and astronomy.
The decades-long debate over the origin of water on planet earth just got a little more complicated. A University of Michigan-led study published in the journalmakes the case that a large part of earth’s water may have come from so-called ‘dark comets.’
In fact, up to 60 percent of near-earth objects could be dark comets, the University of Michigan reports. They likely contain ice and could represent one way that water could have been delivered to earth, the university notes. The Michigan study examined seven dark comets and estimates that between 50 and 6000 additional near-earth objects could be dark comets, says the University of Michigan. In other words, these comets do not appear to have comae but do have nongravitational accelerations that must come from some sort of degassing, the university notes.
These dark comets are generally rapidly rotating and small —- on the order of ten to 100 meters in size.
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