How exactly did our Solar System form? How did it evolve to what we know today? Perhaps we are closer to knowing the answers to these two big questions. The reason is that, thanks to the James Webb telescope, we may know the composition of the objects in the trans-Neptunian belt, also known as the Kuiper Belt.
The astronomer Noemí Pinilla-Alonso , associate scientist at the Florida Space Institute, doctorate in Astronomy and Astrophysics from the University of La Laguna (Tenerife) and who has also passed through NASA itself, leads the DisCo project (from the English Discovering the Surface Composition) , in which we will try to find out what the objects that make up the Kuiper Belt are made of. “The aim of DisCo is to know the composition of the objects in the trans-Neptunian belt. This kind of rings of icy objects is one of the largest structures that exist in our Solar System, but at the same time one of the most unknown . There are many details that we do not know and basically it is because until now we have not had sufficiently powerful instruments to obtain that information”, explains the astronomer to Very Interesting.
And why this interest in those objects that are beyond Neptune? Pinilla-Alonso illustrates us: “The trans-Neptunian belt is made up of millions of bodies that store information on the stages in which the planets formed and therefore it is one of the key pieces that we need to understand how the solar system was formed, to understand how it evolved to its current state and to understand where those ingredients that gave rise to life were formed.”
The program led by Pinilla-Alonso will study 59 trans-Neptunian bodies, ice-rich objects that orbit the Sun beyond Neptune and are smaller in size than the planets. They are, in the words of the scientist, like frozen asteroids.
DisCo will be executed during the first observation cycle of the James Webb, which, let us remember, was launched on December 24, so if everything goes as expected, data would begin to be received from July this year .
The James Webb telescope, unlike its predecessor, the Hubble, will observe the universe mainly in the infrared and has a much larger light-gathering area, so it will be able to cover greater distances, or go further back in time. time, which is why thanks to him we have the golden opportunity to know more exactly how our Solar System was formed.
Do not miss the full interview with Noemí Pinilla-Alonso in the daily podcast of Muy Interesante, Muy al día.
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