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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 11 2018, @05:46PM   Printer-friendly
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".


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  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:57PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:57PM (#773560)

    > the Universe is 96% dark energy matter liquid that is non-falsifiable and must be there, because, you know, that's the only way the equations will fit the observations.

    I will pay for the SwedishAir tickets when you tell us your "better model".

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