Why Isn’t Earth A Water World? Thank A Massive Star In The Vicinity

What is the reason that our planet is only 70 % ocean? It seems that it is because when our solar system was forming a massive star was nearby. It likely flooded the solar system with radioactive elements and that led to many changes.

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The Earth is one heck of a hospitable planet. While the majority of it is covered by ocean it still has about one third of it covered by land that allowed many species to develop including us and our civilization.

Tim Lichtenberg and his coworkers from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research Planets say that the reason why our planet has a reasonable size of the ocean and why it has a mild climate is because when the Solar system was created a massive star was in the vicinity. They think that the Sun and its planets were born in an open star cluster that is long gone. This may sound strange because nowadays the space around our star system is pretty empty but back then the vicinity of our star system was filled with many different stars.

The scientists simulated the creation of our star system and mainly the creation of the planets. Their simulations tell us that a nearby massive star could be the reason for the existence of our planet as this planet would’ve flooded our Solar system with a massive amount of radioactive elements. If that wouldn’t have happened based on the simulation our planet would’ve been an inhospitable water-world covered by an ocean with a thick ice crust on top.

This is because the radioactive elements go through decay and thus warm our planets over large time periods. But obviously, this isn’t the full story. Other factors have effected how our solar system looks right now.

Sources:

• https://lsa.umich.edu/content/michigan-lsa/astro/en/news-events/all-news/search-news/do-you-like-earth-s-solid-surface-and-life-inclined-climate--tha.html
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0688-5

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