Water and Organic Molecules on Asteroid

[VirusType2]

Artist's conception

(read the article)

Water ice and organic molecules have been discovered on the surface of an asteroid for the first time.

Researchers glimpsed the ice on 24 Themis, the largest member of an asteroid family located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, using the NASA Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This frosty little rock could be the key to understanding how Earth became the blue planet.

“What we’ve found suggests that an asteroid like this one may have hit Earth and brought our planet its water,” said astronomer Humberto Campins of the University of Central Florida, the lead of one of the two separate teams that reported similar findings April 28 in Nature.

While there is plenty of debate around how Earth got its oceans, this new evidence suggests some of the water came from extraterrestrial sources. Here’s how it may have happened: More than four billion years ago, after a massive collision between Earth and another large object created the moon, our planet was completely dessicated. Then, during the Late Heavy Bombardment period that followed, during which lots of asteroids hit Earth, the ice that the objects carried became our store of water.

“The more we find in our asteroid belt objects that do have water, the more convinced we are that that was a possible process to rehydrate the earth,” said NASA astrobiologist Mary Voytek.

The ice on Themis 24 could be a sort of time capsule from the early solar system and could be similar to the ice that may have arrived on Earth from asteroids during the Heavy Bombardment.

“The ice that we see there, right now, is sort of related to the ice that could have come from the main asteroid belt that hit us about 4 billion years ago,” astronomer Henry Hsieh of Queen’s University Belfast told NPR. “It gives us a way to kind of probe the cousins of the asteroids that hit us and probably gave us water in the early stages of the Earth’s formation.” Hsieh wrote a commentary that accompanied the stories in Nature.

The presence of ice and organic molecules on the surface of an asteroid is the latest in a string of discoveries that collectively indicate water ice is a more common substance than we might have thought. In just the past few years, scientists have confirmed the presence of ice at the moon’s north pole as well as beneath the surface of Mars.

It had previously been thought that asteroids were too warm to retain water ice on their surfaces. The exact method for how they do so remains unclear.

Life on earth and water may have come to Earth from outer space, scientists have long hypothesized. In fact, it matches with much of the data. If you look at the moon, for example, you see evidence of heavy bombardment. The moon however, cannot keep water like Earth can.

Note:
An organic compound is any member of a large class of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Read about this earlier on Yahoo News. The thought of asteroids making our oceans however is crazy.

 

[63]

Thank you space rock.

 

[VirusType2]

The thought of asteroids making our oceans however is crazy.

Because?

They can be miles wide.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Thank you, space Virus.

 

[VirusType2]

Well, we don't know for sure about that. But it's an exciting possibility. Again, this isn't a new hypothesis, but now there is physical proof that it's possible.

I don't know, I just find it fascinating that they could have come from a collision, a million light-years away or something. The building blocks for life.

 

[the cow says moo]

Because?

They can be miles wide.

Yeah, there's a good chance that happened since the world apparently started out as molten rock on the surface.

Nice ninja edit, foo.

 

[VirusType2]

Yeah, there's also the hypothesis of the Eath's tilt caused by a massive collision, which would have made it impossible for any water (if there was any) to have remained there afterward. Meaning, "the ice came from outer space" is actually very realistic.

 

[Warped]

Read about this earlier on Yahoo News. The thought of asteroids making our oceans however is crazy.

Read about this even earlier on space.com

also my dad had this theory (and i'm sure other did too) when i was a kid. i remember him constantly saying that asteroids brought life/water to this world