Scientists find evidence of flowing water on Ryugu’s ancient parent asteroid. 'It was a genuine surprise!'

(Main) An up close view of the surface of Ryugu (Inset) an illustration of Hayabusa2, the Japanese spacecraft that captured this image.

Liquid water flowed across the surface of the asteroid that birthed the near-Earth object (NEO) Ryugu much later than scientists had thought possible, a new study finds.

The discovery that water existed in liquid form a billion years after the parent body of Ryugu formed came from the study of rock samples collected from the NEO by Japan's Hayabusa2 probe between 2018 and 2019, and returned to Earth on Dec. 5, 2020.