Where did Earth's water come from? This meteorite might hold the answer - CNN

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London CNN  — 

If you’ve ever wondered wherever h2o connected Earth comes from, caller probe connected a meteorite which landed successful a family’s beforehand gait successful England past twelvemonth whitethorn person conscionable the answer.

Researchers from London’s Natural History Museum and the University of Glasgow, successful Scotland, studied a meteorite recovered successful the municipality of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, to observe it contained h2o akin to that recovered connected Earth.

“It’s a crystal wide model into our aboriginal star system,” Luke Daly, co-author of the survey and a lecturer successful planetary geoscience astatine the University of Glasgow, told CNN Thursday.

Published successful the diary Science Advances connected Wednesday, the survey reveals that extraterrestrial rocks whitethorn person brought captious chemic components – specified arsenic h2o – to our satellite billions of years ago, establishing the oceans and each beingness connected Earth.

Approximately 71% of the Earth’s aboveground is covered successful water, with oceans holding astir 96.5% of each water, according to the US Geological Survey.

Imaging and chemic investigation of the Winchcombe meteorite – arsenic it has go known – revealed it contains astir 11% h2o and 2% c by weight, making it the archetypal of its benignant recovered successful the UK.

The team, which measured the ratio of hydrogen isotopes successful the water, recovered that it intimately resembled the creation of h2o connected Earth, according to a property merchandise from the Natural History Museum.

Extracts from the stone besides recovered extraterrestrial amino acids, making it the strongest grounds that h2o and integrated worldly were delivered to the satellite by asteroids similar the 1 Winchcombe broke distant from.

The meteorite was identified arsenic a CM carbonaceous chondrite, a benignant of stony meteorite that contains a precocious creation of components that predate the star system.

Recovered wrong 12 hours of its landing with the assistance of the UK Fireball Alliance, an enactment which aims to retrieve freshly-fallen meteorites successful the UK, it had precise small clip to beryllium altered by the Earth’s atmosphere.

“We cognize (this means) everything wrong it is 100% extraterrestrial including the 11% h2o it contains,” Daly said.

“Most CM chondrites person ‘Earth-like’ h2o but these rocks change and degrade wrong days (or) weeks of being connected Earth, and truthful they could conscionable beryllium Earth-like due to the fact that they person absorbed rainfall h2o oregon something,” helium explained.

Natasha Almeida, curator of meteorites astatine the Natural History Museum and survey co-author, said successful a connection Wednesday the “incredibly caller specimen volition stay 1 of the astir pristine meteorites successful collections worldwide.”

Daly called the Winchcombe meteorite a “lucky” find. It was lone the size of a basketball, truthful if it was traveling astatine a antithetic velocity oregon astatine a antithetic angle, it would person each burnt up, helium said, adding that it was a large collaboration of the UK cosmochemistry web who “came unneurotic to propulsion the room descend astatine studying this rock.”

While this insubstantial is the archetypal of galore publications that are successful the works connected the meteorite, Daly said it volition support them engaged for years to come. “There are surely galore much stories and secrets held successful this peculiar stone,” helium added.