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An asteroid that carries cold water through the solar system

A team of researchers which includes the Institute de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) has found small amounts of ice water and complex organic substances on the surface of the asteroid Cybele '65 ', as reported by the English scientific center.

The finding suggests that there is more water than was thought in the inner Solar System and provides new evidence for the theory that posits that the water came to Earth through the impact of asteroids and comets. Cybele '65 'is the second asteroid in which water ice has been detected after the same team found this item on the surface of Themis '24' earlier this year.

The presence of these materials in two asteroids, observed by the same team, also suggests that the bodies are in the inner Solar System (at distances less than the distance to Jupiter) contain more water than previously thought the time.

IAC explains that a little less than 479,000 million miles from Earth (3.4 AU), the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is made of material that never made it to accumulate to form a planet due to gravitational perturbations exerted by Jupiter over the area.

The bodies, mostly asteroids have a very different composition (from clay minerals such as feldspar and metals such as iron and nickel) that add water and organic molecules. "Like 24 Themis, 65 Cybele is covered by a thin layer silicates and granulated mixed anhydrides with small amounts of water ice and complex organic substances, IAC said investigator Javier Licandro, first author of the study.

By its composition, 65 Cybele is part of the category of primitive asteroids. "The silicates that form has not been modified significantly since the beginning of the solar system," says astrophysicist.

study provides new evidence to prove his hypothesis that launched in the previous study, published in two articles in the journal Nature in April.

"water has been detected in almost all the bodies are from Jupiter. This particular finding is that ice has been found at a distance relatively close to our planet, about three astronomical units (over 448,000 million miles from Earth). But surely what matters is that water has been detected on asteroids, "says the researcher from the IAC.