Planetary scientist Akira Tsuchiyama, Visiting Research Professor at Ritsumeikan University in Japan, has finally found the sought-after meteorite water that has eluded scientists for years. There was still liquid water in calcite which was embedded in the Sutter’s Mill meteorite, which is a carbonaceous chondrite. Its chondrules, or spherical pieces of different minerals, mean it did not fully melt in the heat of early solar system formation. These types of meteorites are like cosmic time capsules.
“Most of calcite (CaCO3) grains in carbonaceous chondrite should precipitate from CO2-rich fluid,” Tsuchiyama, who led a study recently published in
Science Advances, told SYFY WIRE. “Calcite is most likely precipitated from a fluid, which is responsible for aqueous alteration recorded in carbonaceous chondrites, in a parent body of the meteorite, so calcite grains should contain inclusions of such fluid.”
Scientists detect small pockets of carbon dioxide-rich liquid water in a meteorite dating from the early solar system
By studying ancient meteorite fragments, scientists can gain important insights into how our solar system formed eons ago. Now, in a new study, researchers have discovered carbon dioxide-rich liquid water inside a meteorite from an asteroid that formed 4.6 billion years ago. This finding suggests that the meteorite’s parent asteroid formed beyond Jupiter’s orbit before being transported into the inner solar system and provides key evidence for the dynamics of the Solar System’s formation.
Water is abundant in our solar system. Even outside of our own planet, scientists have detected ice on the moon, in Saturn’s rings and in comets, liquid water on Mars and under the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and traces of water vapor in the scorching atmosphere of Venus. Studies have shown that water played an important role in the early evolution and formati
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