02:19 PM Thursday, October 19, 2023
NASA has found what is arguably the first path to discovering life on a planet in outer space: the dwarf planet Ceres.
In 2017, scientists studying data sent back by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft discovered organic compounds known as aliphatic molecules near a 32-mile-wide impact crater on Ceres’ surface, according to Space.com.
Ceres is a dwarf planet located in the central main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Since then, they have been trying to determine the origin of these molecules; Some studies indicated that asteroids brought it to the dwarf planet while other studies concluded that it formed on Ceres itself.
“We found that organic materials may be more widespread than first reported, and appear to be resilient to impacts in conditions similar to those of Ceres,” says Juan Rizos, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics in Spain and co-author of the study.
To reach their conclusions, Rizos and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments simulating expected impact conditions on Ceres at a NASA facility in California. The team combined data from the camera and spectrophotometer on Dawn, and together the two data sets allowed the team to map organic-rich areas on Ceres in greater detail than previously possible.
The results clearly show a “good correlation” between organics and areas hosting older impacts, showing that asteroid strikes have already affected the presence and abundance of organics over billions of years, the researchers say.
“Although the origin of organic materials is still not well understood, we now have good evidence that they formed on Ceres and most likely in the presence of water. There is a possibility of finding a large internal reservoir of organic materials within Ceres,” Rizos said.
Another NASA probe called Lucy will soon explore 10 Trojan asteroids believed to hold evidence of the creation of our solar system and even Earth, thanks to hosting material from the early solar system.
