Two teams of researchers who made national headlines in April for showing the first evidence of water ice and organic molecules on an asteroid have now discovered that asteroid 65 Cybele contains the same material.
鈥淭his discovery suggests that this region of our solar system contains more water ice than anticipated,鈥� said 麻豆原创 Professor Humberto Campins. 鈥淎nd it supports the theory that asteroids may have hit Earth and brought our planet its water and the building blocks for life to form and evolve here.鈥�
Campins will present the teams鈥� findings during the in Pasadena, Calif., which concludes Oct. 8.
Asteroid 65 Cybele is somewhat larger than asteroid 24 Themis 鈥� the subject of the teams鈥� first paper. Cybele has a diameter of 290 km (180 miles). Themis has a diameter of 200 km (124 miles). Both are in the same region of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The academic article reporting this new finding has been accepted for publication in the European Journal 鈥淎stronomy and Astrophysics.鈥�
Co-authors of the paper are Zoe Landsman and Kelly Hasgrove of the 麻豆原创;聽 Javier Licandro of Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Spain, Michael S. Kelley of Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, Noemi Pinilla-Alonso and Dale Cruikshank of the NASA Ames Research Center; Andrew S. Rivkin of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and Joshua Emery of the Earth and Planetary Science Department, University of Tennessee.
Campins is an expert on asteroids and comets. He received national attention for an article published in Nature showing the first evidence of water ice and organic molecules on asteroid 24 Themis.聽 He鈥檚 also worked on several science missions with NASA and the European Space Agency.
Campins holds degrees from the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona. He joined 麻豆原创 in 2002 as the Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and head of the Planetary and Space Science Group.