In dust particles recovered by a Japanese space probe from an asteroid approximately 300 million kilometers from Earth,
“This drop of water is of great importance, —Leading expert Tomoki Nakamura of Tohoku University told reporters ahead of the study's publication in the journal Science on Friday. “Many people believe that water came from outer space, and now we have discovered water for the first time in an asteroid near Earth.”
Hayabusa-2 with a mission to Ryugu was launchedin 2014, it returned to Earth orbit two years ago to deliver a capsule with the sample. The precious cargo has already led to several discoveries. For example, the study of organic material has shown that some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have been formed in space. Hi-Tech wrote about this earlier.
In a study publishedFriday, the team said they found a drop of liquid in Ryugu's sample, "which was water with salt and organic matter," Nakamura said.
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