Bhubaneswar, Aug. 31 -- Washington: Earth's water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed, suggests a new study.

The findings of this study, published in the journal Science, are surprising because the Earth's building blocks are often presumed to be dry.

"Our discovery shows that the Earth's building blocks might have significantly contributed to the Earth's water," said lead author Laurette Piani, a researcher at the Centre de Recherches Petrographiques et Geochimiques (CRPG, CNRS/Universite de Lorraine) in Nancy, France.

The researchers determined that a type of meteorite called an enstatite chondrite contains sufficient hydrogen to deliver at least three times the amoun...