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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: 3, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Tuesday December 11 2018, @07:30PM
Not just a near earth orbit, but one that is one of the most likely of any known to impact earth.
They also found boulders standing on the surface with a diameter a significant fraction (~3% 15m/500m) of Bennu's total diameter, not sure if that helps or hurts the Runaway ejecta theory. Would be novel if we get the sample back in a few years and find traces of known organisms in it.