The asteroid Bennu is found to contain water inside

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe has discovered that the asteroid called Bennu contains water. Apparently, this element could have come from some planet it once came from.

In addition to achieving the impressive feat of the InSight spacecraft with its successful landing on the red planet, NASA also managed to reach the meteor called Bennu with its “OSIRIS-REx” probe.

Named after “Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer”, the probe has made a very important discovery. According to the data sent by it, the aforementioned space rock contains water inside.

The asteroid’s diameter is 400 meters and, ironically, despite containing one of the indispensable elements of life, it is the second most dangerous meteorite for Earth.

On December 3rd, the probe made contact with the asteroid Bennu. To achieve this, the advanced robotic electronic device travelled 3,200 kilometres over 2 years. That is, as the saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race”.

The main objective of the mission is to obtain samples from the surface of Bennu. It is important to study the composition of the rocks, since some of them not only indicate their age, which by the way can also be used to determine the distance travelled by the same, but we may also discover new elements housed in these solitary space travellers.

The discovery of water in the composition of the asteroid supports theories put forward about, among other things, the very formation of the Earth. At some point billions of years ago, during the process of creating our blue planet, millions of constant meteorite impacts struck our rocky and unstable planet, at a time when the solar system was full of space dust, rocks and other debris that came together due to gravity.

Theoretically, it would have been these meteorites, loaded with ice for millions of years, that filled our oceans with water, so you know, next time you swim in the sea, think that you may be doing so in waters at least 3 billion years old…

It seems that every day that passes, science is getting closer to finding the answers we have been searching for so long…