On the vast stage of the earth, the blue ocean occupies the leading role, covering 70% of the territory of our planet. In contrast, even the mysterious hinterland of the deep sea, the abyss more than 10,000 meters deep, is just a thin film on the radius of the earth.
Earth profile.
Deep in the western Pacific Ocean, the Fichaz Abyss of the Mariana Trench is a giant picture of nature, reaching a depth of an astonishing 11 kilometers. The trench is 70 kilometers wide and 2,550 kilometers long, and scientists have long predicted that the Japanese archipelago will sink into its abyss for years to come. While this process may take tens of millions or even billions of years, advances in deep-sea exploration technology have given us a glimpse into the future.
Every year, about 3 billion tons of seawater disappear into the bottomless abyss of the Mariana Trench, a phenomenon that has been going on for millions of years. One can't help but wonder: where does all this vanished sea water end up? What is the driving force behind it?
The Earth's internal structure is like an onion peeled back from layer to layer, revealing its true face – a dynamic system of multiple plates. When plates collide and squeeze each other, spectacular mountains and other geological formations form on the surface or in the ocean. In particular, when one plate subducts into another, a deep trench forms in the ocean. It is the crevices and fissures left behind by the subduction of these plates that serve as channels for the trench to absorb seawater.
* Wave detection has revealed the rapid flow of seawater in certain regions, where 3,000 trillion tons of seawater have been missing for millions of years. The liquid water that penetrates the Earth's interior is either evaporated or absorbed by rocks under rising temperatures and pressures, and thus converted into a part of the solid state.
Sometimes, they also become high-temperature, high-pressure gases during submarine volcanic eruptions**. However, whatever the fate is, it will not affect the overall abundance of the Earth's water resources, because the Earth's water cycle has evolved over billions of years and is extremely stable.
It has been speculated that if the Earth is invaded by extraterrestrial civilizations in the future, it may be because of water resources. But today's writers have discovered that water is not uncommon in the universe. In addition to water on Earth, water resources also exist on other planets, although they usually exist in solid states, such as the ice in craters at the south pole of the Moon, and the ice at the poles of Mars.
Not only that, but some of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons also have Earth-like oceans of liquid water, such as Europa, which hides a vast subglacial ocean, and Titan, the only planet in the solar system other than Earth, to have an atmosphere and ocean, even though its oceans are mostly composed of liquid methane and ethane.
In the final analysis, human beings regard water resources as precious and precious because the origin of life was 3.8 billion years ago near the submarine volcanic crater, and the solubility of water gave birth to the first molecules of life. As a result, astronomers speculate that other planets in the universe with water resources are likely to give birth to the miracle of life.
However, the mysteries of the universe are much more than that. In addition to carbon-based life that relies on water and oxygen, there may also be silicon-based life forms that are adapted to extreme high temperature and high pressure environments. Thus, in the search for exoplanets and extraterrestrial life, astronomers are no longer limited to the standard of life on Earth. On what we see as a desolate planet with no signs of life, there may be unknown life forms lurking.