The discovery of two space objects with “complex” organic materials between Mars and Jupiter, where they shouldn’t exist

Scientists have discovered two mysterious objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that appear to be loaded with “complex” organic matter, which they say shouldn’t be there.

These space rocks, called 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia, were discovered by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa). The 203 Pompeja is around 110 km wide, while the smaller 269 Justitia is only 55 km in diameter.

These two asteroids are found in the rock group between Mars and Jupiter and are markedly different from their neighbors.

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The 203 Pompeja and the 269 Justitia both reflect a brighter red light than other surrounding asteroids due to the increased presence of “complex organic matter” on their surface, such as carbon or methane.

Such asteroids are usually not found in the belt, which is usually made up of blue debris, but is common among the trans-Neptune and centaur bodies (small bodies orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune), hence astronomers believe that they are native.

Objects in the inner solar system tend to reflect more blue light because they lack organic matter, while objects in the outer solar system are redder because they contain more organic matter.

The Japanese space agency believes the movements of these asteroids are due to the chaos of the early solar system, where the movement of huge planets such as Jupiter, made the gravitational fields more chaotic and sent these two objects into the belt.

This event must have occurred during the early stages of our cosmic environment, as both have stable circular orbits.

“To get this organics, you first have to have a lot of ice on the surface. So it must have formed,” Michael Marset of the University of Massachusetts, who worked on the article, told The New. recently published on these asteroids. York Times. In a very cold environment. Then the solar radiation from the ice produces these complex organic substances. “

The presence of these asteroids could be important to the beautiful model, which argues that Saturn, Uranus and Neptune moved away from the solar system over a period of one hundred million years, while Jupiter moved slightly inward.

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The asteroid belt is estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids over a kilometer in diameter, and millions of asteroids much smaller than that.

However, it is generally believed that those over 100 km in diameter avoided the destructive physics of the early solar system and therefore could provide key information for this age.

Not all scientists agree. Hal Levison, a planetologist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and head of NASA’s mission (Lucy) to study Jupiter’s asteroids, told the New York Times that the asteroids should have become less red as they got closer. from the sun. . As such, it’s not entirely certain why asteroids are so red, but unlocking this secret may have to do with understanding how they became part of the belt.

To solve this mystery, it will likely be necessary to send a spacecraft there for further study, which JAXA says “deserves to be considered a candidate destination” in the future.

Source: The Independent

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