Webb data suggests the possibility of ice and hydrated minerals on surface of Psyche
Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected evidence of hydrated minerals and even possibly a very tiny amount of water ice on the surface of the metal asteroid Psyche.
The Webb data point to hydroxyl and perhaps water on Psyche’s surface. The hydrated minerals could result from external sources, including impactors. If the hydration is native or endogenous, then Psyche may have a different evolutionary history than current models suggest. “Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” said SwRI’s Dr. Anicia Arredondo, another co-author. “Hydration that is endogenous could suggest that Psyche is not the remnant core of a protoplanet. Instead, it could suggest that Psyche originated beyond the ‘snow line,’ the minimum distance from the Sun where protoplanetary disc temperatures are low enough for volatile compounds to condense into solids, before migrating to the outer main belt.”
However, the paper found the variability in the strength of the hydration features across the observations implies a heterogeneous distribution of hydrated minerals. This variability suggests a complex surface history that could be explained by impacts from carbonaceous chondrite asteroids thought to be very hydrated.
You can read the research paper here [pdf]. The actual amount of water possible is at most 39 parts per million and is also an order of magnitude lower than that found on the Moon, which strongly suggests that it comes from outside sources, such as impacts from other asteroids, not from the inherent geological history of Psyche itself.
The uncertainties of this research, which are large, which should be resolved when the probe Psyche, launched last year, reaches the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected evidence of hydrated minerals and even possibly a very tiny amount of water ice on the surface of the metal asteroid Psyche.
The Webb data point to hydroxyl and perhaps water on Psyche’s surface. The hydrated minerals could result from external sources, including impactors. If the hydration is native or endogenous, then Psyche may have a different evolutionary history than current models suggest. “Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” said SwRI’s Dr. Anicia Arredondo, another co-author. “Hydration that is endogenous could suggest that Psyche is not the remnant core of a protoplanet. Instead, it could suggest that Psyche originated beyond the ‘snow line,’ the minimum distance from the Sun where protoplanetary disc temperatures are low enough for volatile compounds to condense into solids, before migrating to the outer main belt.”
However, the paper found the variability in the strength of the hydration features across the observations implies a heterogeneous distribution of hydrated minerals. This variability suggests a complex surface history that could be explained by impacts from carbonaceous chondrite asteroids thought to be very hydrated.
You can read the research paper here [pdf]. The actual amount of water possible is at most 39 parts per million and is also an order of magnitude lower than that found on the Moon, which strongly suggests that it comes from outside sources, such as impacts from other asteroids, not from the inherent geological history of Psyche itself.
The uncertainties of this research, which are large, which should be resolved when the probe Psyche, launched last year, reaches the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Ion drive working well. Just under two more years for the Mars fly-by and assist.
As James T. Kirk would say, “Thrusters on full.”
WHAT if….the asteroid belt is an exploded planet, with city/county sized chunks of frozen oceans with solidly frozen life forms in them….(fish “rains” in clear skies)Naw, couldn’t be.
The existence of intact surviving protoplanet Vesta out in the asteroid belt (which in my view ought to be regarded as a “dwarf planet” these days—like Ceres—at least) shows that the asteroids never were a single large planet that “blew up.” Vesta also shows how extremely iron and heavy metal rich asteroids got that way: by melting through and through soon after their formation due to the heat of decaying radioactive elements (principally Aluminum-26).
It is believed that asteroid Psyche basically is composed of (part of) the exposed nickel-iron core (disrupted by a gigantic impact with another great asteroid) of a protoplanet much like Vesta, but one which didn’t come through the era of great impacts more or less intact. Since those protoplanets (to form their iron core) basically melted through and through at an early point, as a result little water is expected to have survived in those bodies—unless added by impacts with water-rich asteroids or comets later.