Comet Catalina proposes that comets deliver carbon to rocky planets

Comet Catalina proposes that comets deliver carbon to rocky planets

This illustration of a comet from the Ear Cloud as it passes through the inner solar system with dust and gas evaporating in its tail. SOFIA’s observations of the comet Catalina show that it is carbon-rich, suggesting that comets supplied carbon to terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars as it formed in the early solar system. Credit: NASA / SOFIA / Lynette Cook.

In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system slid past the earth. It briefly becomes visible to stargazers like the comet Catalina before slinging past the sun to disappear from the solar system forever.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), NASA’s telescope on an aircraft, was among the many observatories that got a glimpse of this comet. Using one of its unique infrared instruments, SOFIA was able to project a familiar fingerprint into the dusty glow of the comet’s tail – carbon.

Now this one-time visitor to our inner solar system helps more about our origin, as it appears that comets like Catalina could have been an important source of carbon on planets like Earth and Mars during the early formation of the solar system.

New results from SOFIA, a joint project of NASA and the German Airline Center, have been published in the Planetary Science Journal.

“Carbon is the key to learning the origin of life,” said the paper’s lead author, Charles “Chick” Woodward, an astrophysicist and professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Minnesota Institute of Astrophysics. “We are still not sure if the earth was able to capture enough carbon during its formation, so carbon-rich comets could have been an important source that could have provided this essential element that led to life as we know it.”

Frozen in time

The comet Catalina and others of its kind, originating from the Oort cloud at the farthest corners of our solar system, have such long orbits that they reach our threshold relatively unchanged. It effectively freezes them in time and offers researchers rare opportunities to learn about the early solar system from which they come.

The infrared observations of SOFIA could capture the composition of the dust and gas as it evaporated from the comet and formed its tail. The observations showed that comet Catalina is carbon-rich, suggesting that it formed in the outer regions of the primeval solar system, which contains a carbon reservoir that could be important in bringing about life.

While carbon is an important component of life, the early Earth and other terrestrial planets of the inner solar system were so hot during its formation that elements such as carbon were lost. While the cooler gas giants like Jupiter and Neptune can support carbon in the outer solar system, Jupiter’s jumbo size can block the gravity of gravity from interfering with the inner solar system again.

Mixture

How, then, did the inner rocky planets evolve into the carbon-rich worlds they are today?

Researchers believe that a slight change in Jupiter’s orbit enabled small, early precursors of comets to mix carbon from the outer regions in the inner regions, where it was incorporated into planets such as Earth and Mars.

The carbon-rich composition of comet Catalina helps to explain how planets that formed in the hot, carbon-poor regions of the early solar system evolved into planets with the life-supporting element.

“All terrestrial worlds are subject to impact by comets and other small bodies carrying carbon and other elements,” Woodward said. “We are getting closer to understanding exactly how this impact on early planets could have catalyzed life.”

Observations of additional new comets are needed to learn if there are many other carbon-rich comets in the Ear Cloud, which will further support that comets supply carbon and other life-supporting elements to the terrestrial planets. As the largest observatory in the world in the sky, the mobility of SOFIA can do so quickly to observe newly discovered comets as they move through the solar system.


Observations of the first passage of a comet by the solar system reveal unexpected secrets


More information:
Charles E. Woodward et al., The Coma Dust of Comet C / 2013 US10 (Catalina): A Window to Carbon in the Solar System, The Planetary Science Journal (2021). DOI: 10.3847 / PSJ / abca3e

Provided by the University of Minnesota

Quotation: Comet Catalina proposes that comets deliver carbon to rocky planets (2021, March 5) detected on March 6, 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-03-comet-catalina-comets-carbon-rocky.html

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