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Extraterrestrial water was discovered for the first time in a meteorite that landed in the United Kingdom last year. The meteorite crashed into a driveway in Gloucestershire town in February 2021, and it is thought to contain information about where the water in the Earth’s vast oceans came from.
Ashley King, a researcher at the Natural History Museum’s planetary materials division, reportedly told The Independent that the sample was the least contaminated one ever gathered and that water made up about 12% of it. He claimed that the meteorite offers a wealth of information and that the water’s chemical makeup is “very, very comparable” to that of the oceans on Earth.
The source quotes Mr. King as saying, “It’s a really good piece of evidence that asteroids and bodies like Winchcombe made a very major contribution to the Earth’s oceans.”
Furthermore, Mr King confirmed that it was the first time a meteorite containing extra-terrestrial water had fallen in the United Kingdom, despite being locked up in minerals. He also stated that because the 0.5kg space rock was recovered so quickly – within 12 hours – it was not contaminated by water or materials on Earth.
Now “One of the big questions in planetary science is where did Earth’s water come from. And one of the obvious routes is via comets, which contain massive amounts of ice, or asteroids. There’s always a debate about whether comets or asteroids were the primary sources.” Sky News quoted Mr King as saying.
Data from comet missions, according to the researcher, show that they do not mix well with the water on Earth. He continued, “That would imply that asteroids – carbonaceous asteroids – were probably the main supplier of water to the inner solar system, to the Earth. The chemistry of the water in Winchcombe is much better match.
Mr King went on to say that the meteorite came from an asteroid near Jupiter. He stated that it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago and took approximately 300,000 years to reach Earth.
