The glowing tail of Comet Catalina may explain how a material considered essential for life – carbon – is present on rocky planets like Earth or Mars.
According to a scientific paper just published in the Planetary Science Journal, Catalina, a guest from the Oort Cloud neighborhood on the edge of the solar system suddenly approached us in 2016, perhaps helping to explain our own origins.
According to the research team of the SOFIA (Infrared Astronomical Stratosphere Observatory) project in collaboration between the German Aerospace Center and NASA, Comet Catalina has just visited us, offering the golden opportunity for research. This time, SOFIA has identified clear evidence of carbon in Catalina’s dusty tail. Carbon is the “basic” element of organic molecules, or we can say that it is the first seed of life.
SOFIA member Professor Charles Woodward of the Minesota Institute of Astrophysics (USA) said they previously doubted the Earth had enough carbon when it came from the Sun’s protoplanets disk. The answer is probably no. Comets like Catalina add carbon to the planet.
In the early days of the Solar System, Jupiter’s outward movement – already proven – indirectly dragged countless carbon-rich comets inward through its enormous gravity.
According to NASA, the Oort cloud should be further observed to see if it contains many carbon-rich comets, and this is one of the missions of the solar system’s edge probes the agency is targeting.
