NASA's Dawn satellite, which surveyed the Asteroid Vesta for over a year, has gathered data which suggests the presence of liquid flow on the airless rock.
Dawn scientist Jennifer Scully explains, "The straight gullies we see on Vesta are textbook examples of flows of dry material, like sand, that we've seen on Earth's moon and we expected to see on Vesta. But these sinuous gullies are an exciting, unexpected find that we are still trying to understand."
The team's discovery adds a wrinkle to scientists' current understanding of asteroids, as flowing water on the airless asteroid boils quickly.
"On Earth, similar features -seen at places like Meteor Crater in Arizona - are carved by liquid water. On Mars, there is still a debate about what has caused them. We need to analyze the Vesta gullies very carefully before definitively specifying their source," says Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell."[It] would be cool enough just a few metres or even some centimetres beneath the surface that water could be preserved for a long time. So we have some mechanisms like comets that might bring water to the surface - then it could be stored for some period of time."
Scientists are sure to pore over Dawn's data and spark furious debate in the coming weeks and months. While the idea that water may have existed on the asteroids surface is intriguing, the researchers are hesitant to make any proclamations.
Russell tells BBC, "We want to be very, very sure on any statement or pronouncement we make about the gullies or water or anything like that, because it turns out that there are a lot of different interpretations - we have to work our way through them."
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