3 ms·
This one puzzles me: "One of the leading hypotheses on Earth’s formation is that it was so hot when it formed 4.6 billion years ago that any original water con
by wavesum 12y ago
This one puzzles me:
"One of the leading hypotheses on Earth’s formation is that it was so hot when it formed 4.6 billion years ago that any original water content should have boiled off. "
So where would it actually have boil to? I thought gravity affected water also in gas state. Just like the atmosphere doesn't "boil off", why would the water?
- dataduck 12y agoActually, some fractions of the atmosphere do "boil off": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape Essentially, because the distribution of thermal energy has a fairly long tail, it is possible for some lighter particles to reach escape velocity. The hotter the atmosphere, the more (and heavier) particles escape.