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More Water Out There — Ice Found On an Asteroid
Matt_dk writes "For the first time, astronomers have confirmed that an asteroid contains frozen water on its surface. Analysis of asteroid 24 Themis shows evidence of water ice along with organic compounds widespread across the surface. The scientists say these new findings support the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet."
Hydrogen and Oxygen. Stellar fusion. Etc. Nothing magical about it; without (yet) knowing the specifics, we can still reasonably intuit the processes at large.
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The critical finding of the Augustine commission was that NASA is severely underfunded for doing manned spaceflight. If the US wants a human presence in space beyond low Earth orbit we need to be willing the pay the real cost of sending people beyond low Earth orbit. Until that happens any visits to a comet or a Legrange point, or anywhere else further away than the ISS are going to remain a pipe dream, unless if you happen to be Chinese.
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Anybody else find it sort of depressing that our "Voyage to the Stars" is hindered by our invention of currency? Yes, I know that whoever digs materials out of the ground needs paying, and whoever processes them into components needs paying, but it's all very depressing when you thik that we might already have a lunar base and be exploring Mars if it weren't for those damn dollars and pounds holding us back.
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Its not hard to see how water can form in free space. If you have a cloud of hydrogen going one way and it collides with a cloud of oxygen going the other way the interface between the two will be a shock wave with significant temperature and pressure. At the interface the hydrogen will combine with the oxygen and you have water.
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The scientists say these new findings support the theory that asteroids brought both water and organic compounds to the early Earth, helping lay the foundation for life on the planet.
Uhhh... I have a hard time necessarily accepting this. Another perfectly plausible hypothesis is that water and simple organic molecules are fairly common in the solar system (and perhaps beyond), and therefore it is not surprising for it to be everywhere. Earth formed in the right place and under the right conditions for a lot of it to condense into oceans, oceans that are hypothesized to have once covered the entire surface of the planet. These findings equally "support" this hypothesis, as do the findings of amino acids and water in some comets.
It seems to me that the best they can say is that these findings do not refute the hypothesis that asteroids brought water and organic compounds to Earth. There is plenty of geochemistry on Earth to make its own organic compounds and turn them into biochemistry. Citation provided.
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