FA meteorite that fell in Gloucestershire, England last February, has now been found to contain the first extraterrestrial water found in the UK.
According to researcher Ashley King from the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, clues to the origin of water on Earth could be found because about 12% of the sample is made up of water. A lot of knowledge because it is less contaminated to collect.
Looking at the new discovery, he clarified that since the half-kilogram meteorite was quickly recovered, in about 12 hours, it was not contaminated by water and material on Earth, which scientists “are always trying to match. The composition of aqueous meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials to the composition of water on Earth” .
“The composition of this water is very similar to the composition of water in Earth’s oceans,” King explained, “which is excellent evidence that asteroids have made a very important contribution to Earth’s oceans.”
“Where water came from on Earth is one of the big questions we have in planetary science,” King reiterated, adding that “one of the obvious places might be through ice sheets or comets with loads and loads of asteroids.” Sky News.
The meteorite – the first known carbonaceous chondrites to be found in the UK and the first recovered nationwide in 30 years – is thought to have formed around 4.6 billion years ago and taken around 300,000 years to reach Earth.
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