The discovery of water ice on asteroids raises questions about the early solar system and the origin of life on Earth

Icy Asteroids Move aside buddy, I need to vaporize some water NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle

A thin film of water ice and organic materials coats the space rock named 24 Themis, according to a study released today. That discovery marks the first-ever direct detection of water ice on an asteroid, and adds evidence to theories about how asteroids could have brought water and organic material to a primordial Earth.

A NASA telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea helped scientists gauge the spectrum of infrared sunlight reflected by 24 Themis. Their findings revealed a spectrum consistent with both frozen water and organic material on the 124-mile-wide asteroid, which sits halfway between Mars and Jupiter.

That presented a bit of a mystery, because sunlight would typically cause ice on the asteroid's surface to vaporize. But the latest study published in the journal Nature suggests that ice gets continually replenished by outgassing of water vapor through cracks from inside the asteroid.

Themis belongs to a family of asteroids which formed from the breakup of a larger body long ago, and so it's likely that the parent body had ice. The results may force scientists to rethink their view of the early solar system's evolution.

"It now appears that when the asteroids and planets were first forming in the very early Solar System, ice extended far into the Main Belt region," said Josh Emery, a planetary scientist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. "Extending this refined view to planetary systems around other stars, the building blocks of life -- water and organics -- may be more common near each star's habitable zone."

The discovery also raises questions about the difference between comets and asteroids, given that scientists have usually viewed asteroids as primarily rocky and comets as icy. Past theories about comets bringing water to Earth were shot down when it turned out that comet water held different isotopic signatures than water on Earth.

This study emerged just as extraterrestrial hunters have gathered for the biennial Astrobiology Science Conference near Houston. Steve Squyres, a planetary scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, noted that the find could boost interest in visiting an asteroid during future missions.

"Certainly we believe that availability of water and availability of organics are necessary conditions for the origin of life and for sustaining life," Squyres said during a NASA teleconference today. "We should go where the data leads us."

Even Stephen Hawking would probably agree with that, despite his cautionary warnings about more intelligent and advanced alien species with hostile intent.

[via PhysOrg]

18 Comments

God put that water and organic material on that asteroid.

Yes I did

Enough with all these speculations... there is obviously an answer. Chuck Norris did it.

Cuishi14

from avondale , az

Chris

i always believed that an astroid(1) came to earth with human dna on it. So lets say astroid(1) collided with another astroid and Astroid(1) blew up into a 1500 pieces and one of those pieces landed on earth

Isnt it possible that Another piece of Astroid(1) landed on a planet similar to earth? I always hoped this because if another piece got lucky enough there could be huminoids on other planets that might be at the same stage we are

@Cuishi14

so you believe that there was a random asteroid floating around in space that had the fully formed genetic data of a human being just sitting on it? 0_o

i think it much more likely that amino acids or basic proteins or other organics would have been on an asteroid. For human dna to be on a floating space rock, a humanoid would have to have been riding that space rock around like a cowboy.

Cuishi14

from avondale , az

Chris

i knew someone was gonna say that. I didnt mean DNA i meant any sort of bacteria that humans evolved from. i just posted it before i left to class

then that would make us aliens, which means god is probably a Na'avi

SLNuke8704/28/10 at 5:39 pm
God put that water and organic material on that asteroid.

Here we go again... Insinuating religion (One person's view, but it must be the right one. Right?) into a scientific discussion again. Tell you what. Don't crash our discussion. We won't crash your bible study. 'K?

If you didn't sense the sarcasm in my statement you need to chill out a bit. I thought the statement was so ridiculous that everyone would understand I was joking. Most people did...

@SLNuke87...
So you are saying that God didnt create Adam and Eve here on Earth like the Bible says? That he seeded the asteroid?
Better watch out before those Televangelists come and snuff out your heretical thoughts.

Oops...recant above post! ;-)

i got the sarcasm..

haha, thisnametaken, have you been battling religious types much lately?

This is friggin huge though!
in the past year we have found water-ice in a lot of places.. organics.. hawking spelling out that it makes math sense (seemed a no brainer to me) for there to be aliens or at least extra terrestrial life..

how can there be any doubt that we are not alone in the universe anymore?

Oh, yeah, cause I forgot that when I leave my organic materials and some water in my spotless bathtub for a million years they mix together and form perfectly constructed DNA that starts to move for some reason and eats the suns rays by accident just like the organic materials would accidentally do in mud and rocks and wind and splashing water mixed in with molten lava on Earth billions of years ago. Sorry about that misunderstanding I left my logic in the other room. (catch the sarcasm)

This is no surprise when we discover that these remnants (the contents of the asteroid belt) are the leftovers of a
tenth planet of our solar system. Planetary materials no less. 'Organic' is actually technically incorrect and we can assume that someone has limited scientific vocabulary; but we can let that fly because it's just a mediocre Internet article.

But wait....
Maybe that organic stuff wasn't origin-material, but remnants of life that no longer exists?

@mm2young : Maybe ! I agree with you :)

www.tendances-de-mode.com

Blinding Light64

from cairo, N.Y.

Pleeeeese people argue about the god crap with people who give a damn i am buddhist so i really don't believe in the so called "one God" bull. the asteroid was probably a remnant of a long forgotten planet that had lost its natural Polarity and crumbled from time. The materials that where on the planet followed the asteroids that is all!

Blinding Light64

from cairo, N.Y.

Ha i wish to revise my first comment a believe in chaos now!


138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.

Innovation Challenges



Popular Science+ For iPad

Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page



Download Our App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed


February 2012: The Future of Fun

Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?


circ-top-header.gif
circ-cover.gif