Astronomers Confirm Water Presence on Asteroid Surfaces for the First Time

Studying asteroids, remnants from planetary formation, sheds light on their evolution and composition, offering insights into the distribution of materials in space and the potential transport of water to other planets that could support life.

For the first time, researchers have found that asteroid surfaces can contain water molecules, according to a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal.

The astronomers observed two asteroids, Iris and Massalia, about 223.1 million miles from the sun. They detected water molecules on these cosmic bodies. The discovery lends credence to the idea that asteroids might have brought water to Earth in the distant past when the young planet was bombarded from space.

The study team gathered data using an airborne telescope on the now-decommissioned Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), fitted with a Faint Object infrared Camera.

The decision to explore the asteroids using SOFIA was inspired by the telescope's earlier detection of water on the moon, Dr. Anicia Arredondo, the lead researcher at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, told news outlets.

While one of the research’s co-authors, Dr. Maggie McAdam from NASA's Ames Research Center, had earlier found traces of frozen liquid on the asteroids using a different telescope. But it was unclear if the substance was water or another compound.

The quantity of water discovered is equivalent a small bottle within every cubic meter of soil, according to Arredondo, similar to what SOFIA found in one of the biggest lunar craters in 2020.

“When the solar system was forming, different materials formed based on their distance to the Sun because material (farther) from the Sun cooled down faster (than) material nearer to the Sun…That’s why the inner planets like Earth and Mars are made of rock and the outer planets like Neptune and Uranus are made of ice and gas,” Arrendondo told media.