Water Discovered on an Asteroid

Water has been spotted on an orbiting asteroid for the first time, according to a new study of a space rock that appears to be coated with frost..,the frost seems to be mixed with carbon-bearing material, according to results from two independent teams studying the asteroid, which is known as 24 Themis.,
Asteroids are believed to be the leftovers of planet formation, with compositions that have remained almost pristine for 4.6 billion years.The asteroid 24 Themis orbits about x million miles (480 million kilometers) from the sun. It's one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (Explore an interactive solar system).Unlike comets, which originate from beyond the orbit of Neptune, asteroids are thought to be relatively dry, since they orbit much closer to the sun.Asteroid composition could arrive as early as June, when the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa returns to Earth potentially carrying the first sample taken directly from an asteroid. Hayabusa landed on the asteroid Itokawa in 2005. Although the craft failed to collect any formal samples, scientists think some dust from the space rock's surface might have accidentally gotten into the sampling chamber
By some accounts, Earth should have been too hot in its early days to have retained any of its original water. This has led some scientists to suspect our oceans were delivered by a barrage of asteroids or comets once the planet had cooled.