'A genuine surprise': Near-Earth asteroid Ryugu once had 'flowing water' that transformed its insides

[Judi Lynn]

'A genuine surprise': Near-Earth asteroid Ryugu once had 'flowing water' that transformed its insides

By Harry Baker published yesterday

A new analysis of asteroid Ryugu hints that the "potentially hazardous" space rock once had flowing water in its core, possibly leftover from the impact that created it.



Scientists in Japan now believe that liquid water once flowed through the heart of the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, after researchers detected something unusual in the samples of the space rock that were returned to our planet five years ago.

The surprising findings also have potential implications for how Earth acquired its own water, the researchers say.

162173 Ryugu is a roughly 3,000-foot-wide (900 meter) asteroid that orbits the sun every 474 days on a trajectory that frequently overlaps with Earth's. It is unlikely to ever hit our planet, but it is still large enough and comes close enough to us to be considered "potentially hazardous" by NASA.

Ryugu was visited by Japan's Hayabusa2 mission between 2018 and 2019, which deployed a probe that landed on the spinning top-shape space rock and collected samples that were later returned to Earth in December 2020.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/a-genuine-surprise-near-earth-asteroid-ryugu-once-had-flowing-water-that-transformed-its-insides

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Japan returning asteroid samples was one of the truly great space missions. . . . . nt