MAJOR NASA ANNOUNCEMENT: Shock as WATER discovered on asteroid Bennu

NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft has got to work immediately after arriving at the asteroid on December 3 after travelling more than a BILLION miles through the cosmos. After sending back some initial images, OSIRIS has now discovered trace water molecules on the space rock which is 500 metres in length. Two spectrometers, the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (OVIRS) and the OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emissions Spectrometer (OTES), revealed the presence of water molecules which contained oxygen and hydrogen atoms bonded together, known as “hydroxyls.”

This would mean that at some point in the asteroid’s history, most likely when it was part of a much larger space rock, Bennu’s parent would have had liquid water on it.

Ultimately, scientists believe that this is how life on Earth began – when asteroids carrying liquid collided with out planet in its early formation, providing the ingredients for water and ultimately life.

Ellen Howell, senior research scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) and a member of the mission’s spectral analysis group said: “”This finding may provide an important link between what we think happened in space with asteroids like Bennu and what we see in the meteorites that scientists study in the lab.

“It is very exciting to see these hydrated minerals distributed across Bennu’s surface, because it suggests they are an intrinsic part of Bennu’s composition, not just sprinkled on its surface by an impactor.”

Amy Simon, OVIRS Deputy Instrument Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, added: “The presence of hydrated minerals across the asteroid confirms that Bennu, a remnant from early in the formation of the solar system, is an excellent specimen for the OSIRIS-REx mission to study the composition of primitive volatiles and organics.”

The OSIRIS-Rex mission blasted off from Florida in September 2016.

The spacecraft will collect samples from the space rock which could pave the way for an asteroid mining industry, with some of them worth trillions of dollars because of their minerals which are scarce on Earth such as platinum.

It will also give vital information on how to deflect asteroids from their collision course with Earth.

NASA fears that the asteroid, which has the potential to wipe out a country on Earth, could hit our planet within the next 200 years, with the next close flyby in 2135, but this depends on the Yarkovsky effect.

The Yarkovsky effect is when an asteroid or celestial body changes its orbit due to small push from heat.

The mission will give vital information on how to deflect asteroids from their collision course with Earth.

Finally, it will help unlock the secrets of the solar system.

OSIRIS-Rex will stay alongside asteroid for two years and then will return to Earth in a historic first.