Water has an essential role in origin of life and it plays an important part in day to day life. Almost 2/3 of earth surface has water. But, have you ever think how Earth got it huge amount of water ?
A theory says that the earth got its water the comet, especially icy comet which hits the earth. another theory says that a protoplanet crashed into earth not only delivering the water but also created the moon. Now a new study shows that the minor planet Vesta got its water from space dust. Could that help explain the origin of Earth’s water?
Our solar system is made of the matter, which came from the long dead stars. on the formation of our solar system, these matters from dead stars are vaporized and condensed into the new material. but some portions of the materials are vaporized, still exist in the solar system and they are much older then our solar system. This study is on the some very old materials on the solar system. By identifying and examining such old materials we can get something.
one such old exoplanet is vesta, some of such old matter make a way to vesta in the form of micro meteroids. and these meteoroids brought water to these rocky surface.
vesta has crust mantle and core like our earth. These ancients matter can make vesta melted, differentiated and coalesced into a single planet-like object. The same thing may also happened in the past earth. like vesta, the Earth may be covered by micro meteoroid.
In 1942, Kapoeta meteoroid fall on earth in place of Sudan it was the time of world war 2, and the British military took that along with them. The Kapoeta meteorite is a “Howardite” (a glassy meteoroid) meteorite. There are about 200 of them, and they’re named after Edward Howard.
Many of the Kapoeta meteoroid came from the vesta planet. it was discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in 2011. On
examining such sample of Kapoeta meteoroid, researchers detected many small inclusions later they identified that the inclusions are micrometeoroid made of ancient matter. these inclusions are smaller then the thickness of Human hair. later the researchers used their NANOsim machine to analyse the inclusions.
NanoSIMS stands for Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry. NanoSIMS uses an ion gun to create a beam of ions. That beam is aimed at a sample, in this case the sample of the Kapoeta meteorite. The ion beam creates atomic collisions, and some of those collisions produce secondary ion particles. Those secondary ions are then fed through a mass spectrometer, which identifies the ions. As of 2018, there were just over 40 of these machines in the world . the spectrometry centered around 14 tiny samples from the Kapoeta meteorite, the tiny inclusions called clasts. They were all from one edge of a thin section of the sample. When they analyzed it, they found that 2 of the 14 contained magnetite embayments, in between the host meteorite and the carbonaceous clasts. An embayment is a shaped void, and their presence indicates “aqueous alteration occurring on Vesta as a result of melting the ice embedded in the C-clasts.
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| The planetoid Vesta. The Dawn spacecraft visited Vesta between July 2011 and September 2012. Credit: NASA |
A theory says that the earth got its water the comet, especially icy comet which hits the earth. another theory says that a protoplanet crashed into earth not only delivering the water but also created the moon. Now a new study shows that the minor planet Vesta got its water from space dust. Could that help explain the origin of Earth’s water?
Our solar system is made of the matter, which came from the long dead stars. on the formation of our solar system, these matters from dead stars are vaporized and condensed into the new material. but some portions of the materials are vaporized, still exist in the solar system and they are much older then our solar system. This study is on the some very old materials on the solar system. By identifying and examining such old materials we can get something.
one such old exoplanet is vesta, some of such old matter make a way to vesta in the form of micro meteroids. and these meteoroids brought water to these rocky surface.
vesta has crust mantle and core like our earth. These ancients matter can make vesta melted, differentiated and coalesced into a single planet-like object. The same thing may also happened in the past earth. like vesta, the Earth may be covered by micro meteoroid.
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| A microscopic image of the Kapoeta sample. One of the clasts, or inclusions, is highlighted in red. It clearly looks different from the rest of the sample. “They look completely different from surrounding material,” lead author Liu said. Image Credit: Ogliore Lab |
In 1942, Kapoeta meteoroid fall on earth in place of Sudan it was the time of world war 2, and the British military took that along with them. The Kapoeta meteorite is a “Howardite” (a glassy meteoroid) meteorite. There are about 200 of them, and they’re named after Edward Howard.
Many of the Kapoeta meteoroid came from the vesta planet. it was discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in 2011. On
examining such sample of Kapoeta meteoroid, researchers detected many small inclusions later they identified that the inclusions are micrometeoroid made of ancient matter. these inclusions are smaller then the thickness of Human hair. later the researchers used their NANOsim machine to analyse the inclusions.
NanoSIMS stands for Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry. NanoSIMS uses an ion gun to create a beam of ions. That beam is aimed at a sample, in this case the sample of the Kapoeta meteorite. The ion beam creates atomic collisions, and some of those collisions produce secondary ion particles. Those secondary ions are then fed through a mass spectrometer, which identifies the ions. As of 2018, there were just over 40 of these machines in the world . the spectrometry centered around 14 tiny samples from the Kapoeta meteorite, the tiny inclusions called clasts. They were all from one edge of a thin section of the sample. When they analyzed it, they found that 2 of the 14 contained magnetite embayments, in between the host meteorite and the carbonaceous clasts. An embayment is a shaped void, and their presence indicates “aqueous alteration occurring on Vesta as a result of melting the ice embedded in the C-clasts.
They found two pre-Solar silicate grains, and four pre-Solar silicon-carbide grains.
The minerals and textures found in the meteoroid were linked to the interactions between rock and the water from melted ice.
The researchers says that there must be something that brought water from outer solar system to inner solar system, the inner solar system is too hot so, water can be transporter via micrometeoroid etc like things which contain ice.
The researchers says that there must be something that brought water from outer solar system to inner solar system, the inner solar system is too hot so, water can be transporter via micrometeoroid etc like things which contain ice.
The problem with studying the early earth is because of high level of planetary activity, erosion and plate tectonics have erased ancient evidence. So the links between Vesta, Kapoete, and the ions may help explain how Earth got its water.
If this was happened in our solar system it might formed in other solar system also, so there is possibility for the presence of water in other planets.
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| Meteorites recovered on Earth, courtesy of 4 Vesta. These are images from a separate study into Vesta. A polarized microscope made minerals appear in different colors. Credit: NASA/University of Tennessee. |
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