(ORDO NEWS) — Minor planets originate at the edge of our solar system.
New astronomical infrared measurements have led to the identification of a hitherto unknown class of asteroids.
An international research team including geologists from the University of Heidelberg has been able to characterize these small planets using infrared spectroscopy.
They are located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and, like the dwarf planet Ceres, are rich in water.
According to computer models, complex dynamic processes moved these asteroids from the outer regions of our solar system to the modern asteroid belt shortly after their formation.
With an equatorial diameter of about 900 kilometers, the dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Many other minor planets also orbit this region.
“These are the remains of building materials from which the planets of our solar system were created four and a half billion years ago.
In these small bodies and their fragments, meteorites, we find numerous relics that point directly to the formation of planets,” explains Prof. Dr. Mario Triloff from the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Heidelberg.
Current research shows that small astronomical bodies originate from all regions of the early solar system.
With the help of small bodies from the outer part of the solar system, water could get to the still growing Earth in the form of asteroids.
New infrared spectra were measured by NASA‘s infrared telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii (USA) by Dr. Driss Takir.
“Astronomical measurements allow us to identify Ceres-like asteroids as small as 100 kilometers in diameter, which are currently located in the confined space between Mars and Jupiter near the orbit of Ceres,” explains Dr. Takir, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
At the same time, infrared spectra confirm the conclusions about the chemical and mineralogical composition of the bodies.
Like Ceres, the discovered asteroids have minerals on their surfaces that have formed as a result of interaction with liquid water.
Small astronomical bodies are quite porous. High porosity is another common characteristic of the dwarf planet Ceres, and also an indication that the rock is still quite original.
“Shortly after the formation of the asteroids, the temperatures were not high enough to transform them into a dense rocky structure; they have retained the porous and primitive character typical of outer icy planets located far from the Sun,” explains Dr. Vladimir Neumann, a member of Prof. Triloff’s team.
The properties of these Ceres-like objects and their presence in a relatively narrow zone of the outer asteroid belt suggest that these bodies first formed in a cold region at the edge of our solar system.
Gravitational disturbances in the orbits of large planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, or “giant planetary instability” have changed the trajectory of these asteroids in such a way that objects were “implanted” in today’s asteroid belt.
This has been demonstrated through numerical calculations performed by researchers in the development of trajectories in the early solar system.
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