dv said:
Tau.Neutrino said:
Hayabusa1’s Samples of Itokawa Turned up Water That’s Very Similar to Earth’s Oceans
Hayabusa2 spacecraft is busy exploring the asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Like it’s predecessor, this consists of a sample-return mission, where regolith from the asteroid’s surface will be brought back home for analysis. In addition to telling us more about the early Solar System, these studies are expected to shed light on the origin of Earth’s water (and maybe even life).
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Stuff is awesome
So, not hydrogen peroxide then.
“To study the five samples, each of which measure 50 to 250 microns in diameter (about half the width of a human hair), the team used ASU’s Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (NanoSIMS). This instrument is one of only 22 spectrometers in the entire world that can examine tiny mineral grains with a high degree of sensitivity.
“Asteroids such as Itokawa (which are considered to be “dry”) are capable of harboring more water than scientists previously thought.
“S-type asteroids are one of the most common objects in the asteroid belt. They originally formed at a distance from the sun of one-third to three times Earth’s distance.
“During its history, it would have been heated to between 550 and 800 °C and suffered multiple impacts, with one big event that broke it apart.
Ugh, no! Rubble pile asteroids never broke apart, they formed by really gentle collisions of smaller particles. The lack of a giant impact explains the presence of large amounts of water.
“Itokawa, which assumed its current size and shape by about 8 million years ago.
What! I don’t believe it. I’d guess more like 3,000 million years ago.
“The minerals have hydrogen isotopic compositions that are indistinguishable from Earth. What this shows is that asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment (ca. 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago) were responsible for distributing water to Earth shortly after if formed.
Got it. That means not like the Sun. It also suggests a formation time similar to that of the Earth. Before or at a similar time to the late heavy bombardment.