(ËvÉr bÉl) adj. 1. of or consisting of words: verbal ability. 2. spoken rather than written; oral: verbal communication. 3. concerned with words only, rather than with the ideas, facts, or realities expressed: a purely verbal distinction. 4. corresponding word for word; verbatim: a verbal translation.
Because their hypothesis requires that Earth arose from water-containing materials already present in the inner solar system, it's called the wet-accretion hypothesis. Most of Earth's water has an indigenous origin, says Drake.
If the Earth's oceans were formed from water on our own planet, rather than asteroids, that would solve a couple of problems for planetary scientists. One is why Earth seems to have so much water in the first place. Another is why life, which as far as anyone knows requires water, seems to have appeared so quickly once the Earth had a solid surface.