Ceres is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and is the largest of the objects in the asteroid belt and now, thanks to data from NASA’s Dawn space probe, we can say that for the first time in history , a team of Italian and American scientists have detected organic material on this dwarf planet. These organic compounds, together with ammonia, ice water, carbonates and the salts on their surface, provide the necessary ingredients for the birth of life . The finding has been published in the journal Science.
Thus, the Dawn probe has found an aliphatic organic material on the surface of Ceres, made up of open-chain carbon compounds involved in the fantastic and complex chemistry that generates life.
The researchers located this organic material using data from the Dawn probe’s visible light and infrared mapping spectrometer, as it flew over an area of about 1,000 km2, around Ceres’s Ernutet crater . There a material was detected (the exact compound is still unknown) with characteristic wavelengths of the methyl (CH3) and methylene (CH2) groups, characteristic of organic matter.
What they are sure of is that this organic material is native to Ceres, that is, it was not brought by any external object to the dwarf planet.
“The combined presence in Ceres of this organic material, together with minerals hydrated with ammonia, water ice, carbonates and salts, represents a very complex chemical environment, which suggests a favorable environment for prebiotic chemistry “, comments María Cristina De Sanctis, from the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome and leader of the work.
The dwarf planet Ceres thus joins the planet Mars or the moons Europa, Enceladus or Titan, as places in the solar system that can host life.
“Discovering a locally high concentration of organic matter in Ceres is really intriguing, with wide implications for Astrobiology,” explains Simone Marchi, from the Southwest Research Institute (USA) and co-author of the study.
