Observatory Director Vilas discusses asteroid exploration

Among other things astronomers search the solar system looking for is evidence of water, the life-sustaining liquid.

Astronomer Faith Vilas, director of the Multiple Mirror Telescope observatory on Mount Hopkins, said Tuesday one of the reasons for the search is to find evidence of life beyond Earth.

The MMT' observatory is housed in the boxy-looking building on the top of Mount Hopkins that can be seen from Green Valley.

“We have water throughout our solar system,” she said at one of the Smithsonian Institution’s New Vistas in Astronomy lectures.

About 150 persons listened as she described the search for life in the asteroid belt, the band of space rocks and debris orbiting the sun primarily between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

“Water is essential to life,” she said.

Recent photographs show evidence that water ran on Mars and maybe even “ancient oceans.”

And water evidence is not just there, but on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, there’s what appears to be a water geyser spewing out its vital liquid,

Before coming to the MMTO, Vilas was a principal on a Japanese space mission to Itokawa, one of the smaller bodies in the asteroid belt.

Material in the asteroid belt is part of the early history of the solar system, she said.

The mission to Itokawa sent a lander to the surface to collect material and then return it to Earth.

It’s not known how successful the mission was. The lander may have landed once or twice, and apparently was damaged during the maneuver.

The lander is expected to return to Earth in 2010, and then the scientists will look for evidence of water—and perhaps life—in the asteroid belt.

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