It streaked across the sky in a warm March evening last year, then {{U}}(1) {{/U}} a street in the small town of Monahans, Texas. When seven boys quit their basketball game to {{U}}(2) {{/U}} the damage, they found a shiny, black grapefruit-size rock nestled in the asphalt. {{U}} (3) {{/U}} traveled quickly in newspapers and on TV. The next day, NASA scientist Everett Gibson arrived and took the meteorite, later named Monahans 1998, back to a lab in Houston. There researchers {{U}}(4) {{/U}} the extraterrestrial rock with a hammer and chisel. To their surprise, they smack water. A team led by Michael Zolensky of the Johnson Space Center reports {{U}}(5) {{/U}} in the current issue of the journal Science. It's the first time anyone has found liquid water {{U}}(6) {{/U}} from space-and a tantalizing suggestion that {{U}}(7) {{/U}}.
Meteorites containing water are probably not {{U}}(8) {{/U}} , Zolensky says. But by the time researchers get their hands on the rocks, minerals that trap the water {{U}}(9) {{/U}} away, and the water has evaporated. "Worse, some researchers destroy the aqueous evidence by cutting meteorites open with rock saws and water. I'm betting this isn't {{U}}(10) {{/U}}; it's just that people have been {{U}}(11) {{/U}} their meteorites," Zolensky says.
Of course, Zolensky's team did get a bit lucky. Monahans 1998 was safe in their lab less than two days after it hit Earth, so they examined {{U}}(12) {{/U}}. The scientists were intrigued to find vivid purple crystals of halite inside the meteorite, since halite is a salt {{U}}(13) {{/U}} usually formed from liquid water. Even more curious were the hundreds of tiny bubbles {{U}}(14) {{/U}} in the halite crystals. Zolensky's team analyzed the bubbles by shining {{U}}(15) {{/U}} through them and confirmed they were made of salty brine.
By dating the halite, Zolensky's team found the water trapped inside it formed at least 4.5 billion years ago, back when most scientists believe {{U}}(16) {{/U}} was born. That means the briny relic may help researchers learn about the gaseous-nebula that {{U}}(17) {{/U}} our sun and planets.
But how did the meteorite get wet? One possibility is that a passing comet {{U}}(18) {{/U}} the rock, dropping off a load of liquid water. Or the rock might have chipped off an asteroid that holds pools of fluid. Zolensky's team still needs to study whether the water comes from our own solar system. One thing is certain, however: the Monahans meteorite will fuel {{U}}(19) {{/U}} extraterrestrial life. "Water is a life-giver, so if you want to study where life came from in the solar system, you have to {{U}}(20) {{/U}}," Zolensky says. A wet rock from space doesn't mean little green men are coming soon to a planet near you, but it does raise hopes that we're not alone in the universe.