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from the water+solar+electrolysis=rocket-fuel-and-oxidizer dept.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which "arrived" at the asteroid Bennu on December 3 but has been slowly approaching it for weeks, has found evidence of Bennu's interaction with liquid water in the past:
In a conference today, scientists announced that OSIRIS-REx has found evidence of hydrated minerals on the surface of Bennu using its on-board spectrometers - tools used to determine the exact chemical composition of a specific spot.
That means "evidence of liquid water" in Bennu's past, according to Amy Simon, the scientist overseeing OSIRIS-REx's spectral analysis.
"To get hydrated minerals in the first place, to get clays, you have to have water interacting with regular minerals," says Simon. "This is a great surprise."
And they're abundant, too. There's "strong convincing, evidence that the surface is dominated by these hydrated minerals," according to Dante Lauretta, leader of OSIRIS-REx's sample return mission, leading the team to believe Bennu is "water rich".
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday December 11 2018, @06:53PM (3 children)
How about you provide some empirical evidence of a scientist ever saying an asteroid could never have any water on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 11 2018, @07:21PM (2 children)
Anyway, read about the "standard" theory of star-system formation, particular the theory of the solar system's formation.
The evidence keeps proving it wrong.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:00AM (1 child)
The last I heard there were three or four major theories in contention for how solar systems came into being. There wasn't one "standard model". Even if there had been, the replacement of one model with another isn't anything to be upset about. The verifiable predictions of the old model keep working under the new one. And as for the ones that weren't verifiable, that's why you shouldn't trust unverifiable predictions.
FWIW, one of the big problems with humanity is the demand for belief in things that there isn't sufficient evidence for. It's one thing to use theories as useful tools. That's reasonable, necessary, etc. Belief is something else, that should usually be avoided. Estimates of probability, that's valuable, even if often wrong, but don't go around believing in things even after you test them repeatedly. The sun will probably rise tomorrow sometime within the next 24 hours, but I don't need to believe it. I get just as much, or more, utility out of considering it a useful prediction about the future.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @04:31PM
The government forces people to fund scientists with competing ideas.
After 100s of billions of dollars, it would be unconscionable to have to admit that the universe is not, in fact, filled with dark matter liquid.