Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices discovered in the far reaches of the solar system
The research suggests that CO2 ice was abundant in the cold outer regions of the protoplanetary disk, the large rotating disk of gas and dust from which our solar system formed.
An international study involving Nuno Peixinho, a researcher at the Department of Physics of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) and the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences (IA) in Coimbra, reveals a significant presence of ancient carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) ices in Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), suggesting that CO2 may have been present during the formation of our solar system.
The research, published in Nature Astronomy, suggests that CO2 ice was abundant in the cold outer regions of the protoplanetary disk, a large rotating disk of gas and dust from which our solar system formed.
From a sample of 59 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) observed with the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists detected carbon dioxide in 56 and carbon monoxide in 28. According to the study, carbon dioxide is present on the surfaces of virtually the entire trans-Neptunian population, regardless of their families and body sizes. In contrast, carbon monoxide was only detected in objects with a high abundance of carbon dioxide.
"This is the first time we've observed a large number of TNOs using JWST's infrared spectral features, which would not be possible with telescopes on the Earth's surface. Everything we have seen by analysing the data obtained with this world-class telescope is impressive and unique," says Nuno Peixinho, co-author of the study.
"We didn't expect to find so much carbon dioxide beyond the reach of Neptune (in the Kuiper belt), and certainly not so much carbon monoxide in so many TNOs. This discovery could help us understand more about how our solar system was formed and how these small bodies could have migrated from one region to another, something we know happened but still leaves many questions unanswered," believes the FCTUC researcher.
Trans-Neptunian objects, which orbit the Sun in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune, are well-preserved relics of the planetary formation process. These discoveries help to place important constraints on where these objects formed in the primordial solar system, how they reached the region they inhabit today, and how their surfaces have changed and evolved since their formation. Because they were formed and have always been found at great distances from the Sun, and are much smaller than planets, they still contain the original, unprocessed information about the composition of the protoplanetary disk, making them true 'fossils' of the solar system.
This research is part of the programme Discovering the Surface Compositions of Trans-Neptunian Objects (DiSCo-TNOs), led by planetary scientists Mario Nascimento De Prá and Noemí Pinilla-Alonso, from the University of Central Florida’s Florida Space Institute (FSI)
The scientific paper “Widespread CO2 and CO ices in the trans-Neptunian population revealed by JWST/DiSCo-TNOs” is available here.