Earth’s Oldest Water May Have Come from Ancient H2O-Filled Dust

Earth is the only planet in the solar system that boasts a surface abundantly covered with liquid water. Planetary scientists at the University of Hawaii questioned whether some of the ancient minerals lurking in the deep mantle — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) below Earth’s surface — might have held the planet's first water molecules. "We needed an undisturbed source of mantle from the Earth’s formation," Lydia Hallis, lead author of the study and a planetary scientist w