Earth sciences: Water’s farewell gift
Nature Communications
2013년10월23일
The last moments of ancient water as it evaporated from a meteorite hurtling through space are identified in Nature Communications this week. These findings add weight to the suggestion that Earth’s water arrived from space.
Meteorites are chunks of bigger asteroids that have been floating around in space since the formation of the Solar System, 4.6 billion years ago. They are made from the first cosmic grains and may contain crucial information for determining the origins of both water and life on Earth. Yuki Kimura and colleagues investigated the magnetic properties of minute crystals in a meteorite that fell to Earth in Canada in the year 2000 to reveal the signature of ancient water that once existed in space. The team show that the magnetism of the tiny magnetite particles is such that the crystals could only have formed as the very last droplets of water dried out, leaving behind a unique watermark to be discovered billions of years later.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms3649
리서치 하이라이트
-
7월29일
Engineering: Just add water to activate a disposable paper batteryScientific Reports
-
7월26일
Physics: Slab avalanche origin similar to that of earthquakesNature Physics
-
7월13일
Planetary science: Origins of one of the oldest martian meteorites identifiedNature Communications
-
7월12일
Astronomy: Casualty risk from uncontrolled rocket re-entries assessedNature Astronomy
-
7월12일
Physics: Beam vibrations used to measure ‘big G’Nature Physics
-
7월6일
Biotechnology: Mice cloned from freeze-dried somatic cellsNature Communications