A research group from Kobe University has demonstrated that the heat generated by the impact of a small astronomical body could enable aqueous alteration and organic solid formation to occur on the surface of an asteroid. These results have significantly increased the number of prospective astronomical bodies that could have brought water and the origins of life to Earth.
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Did heat from impacts on asteroids provide ingredients for life on Earth?
A research group from Kobe University has demonstrated that the heat generated by the impact of a small astronomical body could enable aqueous alteration
( 1) and organic solid formation to occur on the surface of an asteroid. They achieved this by first conducting high-velocity impact cratering experiments using an asteroid-like target material and measuring the post-impact heat distribution around the resulting crater. From these results, they then established a rule-of-thumb for maximum temperature and the duration of the heating, and developed a heat conduction model from this.