Water Arrived On Earth From Asteroids, Claims Study

Water is extremely important for all living beings on Earth. There can be no life without water. Till now, it was known that water was already present on Earth when the first living being appeared. But scientists have now said that water might have arrived on our planet by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system.

The claim has been made by scientists who examined rare samples gathered during a six-year Japanese space expedition from the Ryugu asteroid.

According to a report from Phys.org, scientists are examining debris that was brought back to Earth from the asteroid by the Hayabusa-2 mission in 2020 in order to give insight on the beginnings of life and the genesis of the cosmos.

The mission, which is about the size of a refrigerator, was launched by Japan in December 2014 and landed on the diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu, which means "dragon palace" in Japanese, situated 185 million miles away from our planet. When the capsule descended to Earth in 2020, it put on a spectacular spectacle above the Australian outback, racing across the sky as a bright fireball, reported CBS News.

The Japanese space probe collected the 5.4 grams (0.2 ounces) of pebbles and dust after landing on the celestial planet and firing an "impactor" into its surface.

In June, one group of researchers said that they had discovered organic material indicating that some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have evolved in space, the outlet further said.

According to a recent research published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the Ryugu samples might provide answers to the enigma of how seas first evolved on Earth billions of years ago.

The study by the scientists of Japan and the other countries which was published on Monday said that, "Volatile and organic-rich C-type asteroids may have been one of the main sources of Earth's water."

"The delivery of volatiles (that is, organics and water) to the Earth is still a subject of notable debate," it further said. However, the organic compounds discovered in Ryugu particles described in this study are likely one key source of volatiles.