NASA's Dawn spacecraft finds evidence of organic material on Ceres

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

New Delhi: In yet another significant finding, scientists studying the Dawn spacecraft have found evidence for organic material on Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The organics discovery was made by the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) onboard the Dawn spacecraft in and around a northern-hemisphere crater called Ernutet.

"This is the first clear detection of organic molecules from orbit on a main belt body," said Maria Cristina De Sanctis, lead author of the study, based at the National Institute of Astrophysics, Rome. The discovery is reported in the journal Science.

Organic molecules are interesting to scientists because they are necessary, though not sufficient, components of life on Earth.

NASA says the discovery adds to the growing list of bodies in the solar system where organics have been found.

Ceres shares many commonalities with meteorites rich in water and organics - in particular, a meteorite group called carbonaceous chondrites, and the latest findings further strengthen the connection between the dwarf planet, these meteorites and their parent bodies.

According to the mission team, the organics discovery adds to Ceres' attributes associated with ingredients and conditions for life in the distant past.

“This discovery adds to our understanding of the possible origins of water and organics on Earth,” said Julie Castillo-Rogez, Dawn project scientist based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Dawn, which completed nearly two years of observations in orbit at Ceres, is now in a highly elliptical orbit at Ceres, going from an altitude of 4,670 miles (7,520 kilometers) up to almost 5,810 miles (9,350 kilometers).

The new findings presented in the Science paper support the idea that the organic materials are native to Ceres.