MIT, News, WHOI | July 27, 2016

Space Rocks Reveal How Earth Got Its Oceans

Screen Shot 2016-07-27 at 10.35.43 AMBy Heather Goldtstone for WCAI

MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Adam Sarafian talks about his research into the origin of Earth’s oceans.

Oceans cover seventy percent of the Earth’s surface, and there’s even more water trapped inside the planet. Where did it all come from? And when? There have long been two possible answers to those questions: it could have been here since the very beginning, or it could have arrived later, carried by bombarding asteroids and comets.

Adam Sarafian preps samples in Sune Nielsen's NIRVANA clean lab to remove all contamination from the surface prior to analysis (Photo: Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Adam Sarafian preps samples in Sune Nielsen’s NIRVANA clean lab to remove all contamination from the surface prior to analysis (Photo: Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

In October 2014, just a couple of years into his graduate studies, MIT-WHOI joint program student Adam Sarafian found himself the lead author on a Science paper reporting an answer.

Earlier this year Sarafian talked to reporter Heather Goldstone for WCAI, Wood’s Holes local NPR station, about his work and the challenges he had to overcome to find his way to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Read and listen at capeandislands.org

Story Image: A closeup of meteorite samples from the asteroid 4-Vesta after analysis in the Northeast National Ion Microbe Facility in Woods Hole, MA – Image credit: Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution