image: Illustration of the early solar system. Displayed are proto-Earth, proto-Mars, Vesta within the asteroid belt, and proto-Jupiter. The dashed white line represents the snow line, i.e., the transition where water ice is not stable (red) to where water ice is stable (blue). Two possible ways that the inner solar system received water are: water molecules sticking to dust grains inside the 'snow line' and carbonaceous chondrite material flung into the inner solar system by proto-Jupiter. With either scenario water must accrete to the inner planets within about the first 10 million years of solar system formation. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Oct. 31, 2014 issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Adam R. Sarafian at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA, and colleagues was titled, 'Early accretion of water in the inner solar system from a carbonaceous chondrite–like source.' view more
Credit: [Credit: Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution]