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(meteorobs) FW: A Meteoric Discovery: Extraterrestrial Water
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From: Ron Baalke[SMTP:BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasadot gov]
Sent: Friday, August 27, 1999 2:38 PM
To: ASTRO-L@uwwvax.uwwdot edu
Subject: A Meteoric Discovery: Extraterrestrial Water
A Meteoric Discovery: Extraterrestrial Water
'Exciting' Find May Predate Solar System
By Kathy Sawyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 27, 1999; Page A01
A meteorite that whistled into a West Texas yard last year contained the
first extraterrestrial water ever captured on Earth, scientists reported
yesterday.
Like a cosmic message in a bottle, the microscopic bubbles of primordial
water are locked inside crystals of halite, the mineral that makes up table
salt, but in this case has been turned blue and purple by radiation. The
crystals and their liquid cargo appear to date from the dawn of the solar
system about 4.5 billion years ago.
The discovery provides scientists their first chance to study actual samples
of water that may have existed in interstellar space before the sun and
planets were born. It also suggests that there was much more water on early
asteroids than anyone suspected, the researchers said, and it could help
reveal the unknown processes by which this essential ingredient of life was
distributed in the early solar system.
Full story here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/27/036l-082799-idx.html
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