A patch of dust recovered by a Japanese space probe from an asteroid about 186 million miles (300 meters) from Earth revealed a surprising element: a drop of water.
This discovery provides new support for the theory that life on Earth may have originated from space.
The results are among the most recent published research from the analysis The Hayabusa-2 probe collected 5.4 grams of rock and dust From the asteroid Ryugu.
“This drop of water has great meaning,” Tohoku University chief scientist Tomoki Nakamura told reporters before the research was published in the journal Science on Friday.
“Many researchers believe that the water was brought in [from outer space]But we actually did find water for the first time on a near-Earth asteroid, Ryoko.
Hayabusa-2 launched on its mission to Ryukyu in 2014, and returned two years ago to drop a capsule containing a sample into Earth orbit.
The precious payload has already yielded many insights, including organic matter and amino acids, which may have formed some of the building blocks on Earth, into space.
The team’s latest discovery is a drop of liquid in the Ryoko sample, which is “carbonated water with salt and organic matter in it,” Nakamura said.
He said asteroids such as Ryugu or its larger asteroid “could have carried water containing salt and organic matter” when they collided with Earth.
“For example, we found evidence that it may be directly related to the origin of oceans or organic matter on land.”
Nakamura’s team of about 150 researchers, including 30 from the United States, Britain, France, Italy and China, is one of the largest groups analyzing a sample from Ryukyu.
The sample is divided into different scientific groups to increase the chance of new discoveries.
Kenji Kobayashi, an astrophysicist and professor at Yokohama National University, who was not part of the research team, praised the discovery.
“Finding water in the sample is surprising” given its fragility and potential for destruction in space, he said.
“It indicates that the asteroid contained water in liquid form and not just ice, but that water is probably organic matter.”