Comets and asteroids are fundamental to our understanding of the early Solar System. In it, we find materials, almost unchanged by time, present at the beginning of the formation of our and other planets. In early 2016, we received the visit of comet C / 2013 US10, known as Catalina, and, for a brief moment, it was possible to study its composition - and in its brightness, the presence of carbon, a fundamental building block of life, was detected.
Catalina appeared close to the Ursa Major constellation, in the northern hemisphere sky, and his brief visit was a good opportunity for so many observatories to analyze it. Among them was the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a telescope attached to a Boeing 747 aircraft. Through its infrared reading, SOFIA identified the fingerprint of the carbon present in the comet's dust tail.
The importance of this is that these data can help explain the formation of life here on Earth, as it is likely that comets like Catalina were an essential source of carbon for both our planet and Mars. The results of SOFIA, work by NASA in partnership with the German Aerospace Center, were recently published in the Planetary Science Journal.
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| Comet C / 2013 US10 (Catalina), registered in December 2015 (Image: Reproduction / Greg Hogan) |
For the lead author of the article, Charles “Chick” Woodward, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Minnesota Institute of Astrophysics, carbon is the key to understanding the origin of life. "We are still not sure whether the Earth could have captured enough carbon on its own during its formation, so carbon-rich comets could have been an important source of delivery of this essential element that led to life as we know it," he said.
Comets like Catalina originate in the outer reaches of the solar system, in the Oort Cloud. Because of this distance and the long period of the orbit, when approaching the Sun, the comet appears relatively intact with its material literally frozen in time. It is a great opportunity to fit the missing pieces in the studies about the beginning of our system.
As the comet approaches the Sun, it begins to evaporate and release its material in gas and dust, forming its tails. SOFIA, through its infrared observations, showed that Catalina is rich in carbon, suggesting that it formed in the outer regions of the primordial Solar System, where there was a great deal of the fundamental blocks of life - carbon.
The primitive Earth and the other rocky planets were too hot for elements like carbon to be lost or depleted. The presence of the gas giant Jupiter may have blocked the entry of carbon into the Solar System, so the question remains: how is our planet, and its rocky neighbors, today rich in carbon? Researchers believe that a small change in Jupiter's orbit has allowed carbon-laden celestial bodies to enter the inner solar system. Comet Catalina, rich in carbon, can explain how hot and low-carbon planets, at the beginning of the Solar System, became environments with the basic element of life.
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| Because of its high speed, the comet is likely to be escaping the solar system. A return trip (Image: Reproduction / NASA / JPL) |
"All terrestrial worlds are subject to impacts from comets and other small bodies, which carry carbon and other elements," points out Woodward. "We are getting closer to understanding exactly how these impacts on the first planets may have catalyzed life."
Further observations of comets are needed to see if other comets in the Oort Cloud are rich in carbon. For more details on the data and research, simply access the study in the Planetary Science Journal.
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