According to reports from a team of astrophysicists led by a team of researchers coordinated by a researcher from the INAF Maria Cristina De Sanctis that appears on the dwarf planet Ceres there was water. And this is what emerged from a series of observations made by the Italian EIA spectrometer aboard the NASA Dawn mission provided by the Italian Space under the scientific guidance of the Institute of Astrophysics.
Researchers seems that through this tool we have detected in the brightest area of Ceres or inside the crater Occator the highest concentration of carbonates ever recorded in environments outside of the Earth. “It’s the first time we see such a high amount of this material elsewhere in the Solar System,” says Maria Cristina De Sanctis, principal investigator of VIR and first author of ‘article describing the discovery, published in the latest number of the journal Nature.
to the uninitiated Occator is nothing more than a young crater from a geological point of view formed about 80 million years does ; this has a width of 92 km and a central depression of about 10 km in diameter, and in the central area shows a small block coated with reflective material that exhibits the radial concentric structures above and around it. “The minerals that we identified in the bright central region of Occator crater must necessarily have been formed by interaction with water, “ adds De Sanctis. ” the presence of carbonates reinforces the idea that Ceres had internal hydrothermal activity, which pushed these materials to the surface, within Occator “. the De Sanctis team found that the most abundant mineral in this area is carbonate firm or a salt that on Earth is typical of hydrothermal environments. Yes hypothesized that this material can never be deposited by the impact of an asteroid is simply escaping from the inside of Ceres also the ascent of carbonates suggests for the temperature gender are still higher than previously thought.
Now the survey results have led to the hypothesis that under the surface can generally be present liquid water in the recent geological epochs and the salts may be found in the remains of an ocean or a maximum of some accumulations d ‘edged up water to the surface and then encoded million years ago. “to underline the importance of the Italian Space Agency’s role in ensuring the Italian participation in the mission through an agreement with NASA and DLR, and later for the realization of VIS-MS instrument, and for the full support of the Italian scientific team that put in the right conditions, can achieve excellent results like this, “h added Raffaele Mugnolo, which is the program manager for the participation in the Dawn mission.
BUT WHERE iS CERERE The asteroid has an orbit between Mars and Jupiter and is in that band called main belt asteroid. Its motion of revolution around the Sun lasts more than 4 and a half years and is located at an average distance from Earth of nearly 5 billion kilometers. deposits of ice, salt or volcanic activity? The mystery of the white dots of Ceres, a dwarf planet, until now remained had not yet been revealed, but the high-resolution image developed by NASA about a year ago and taken from about 1,470 kilometers, had provided very interesting details. But even with such a careful definition scientists hannio not been able to give an explanation on the possible nature of these structures.
THE MISSION DAWN The NASA probe had started in September 2007 from Cape Canaveral, in addition to exploration delal area of Cererere has thoroughly studied the asteroid Vesta, around which remained for 14 months between 2011 and 2012. Returning to the discovery of the De Sanctis team, which will be published in Nature, it must be said Cheil team found that the material analyzed in the crater is sodium carbonate, “a salt that on Earth-we read in dell’Inaf- document is typical of hydrothermal environments. This material would be leaked from inside of Ceres, because it may not have been deposited by the impact of an asteroid. Therefore the ascent of this material from the deeper layers of the celestial body suggests that temperatures in Ceres are higher than previously thought so far. It could conceivably have been an impact with the asteroid that formed the crater Occator to favor exposure to the surface carbonate observed today, but the researchers think a role in this emergence they have also had internal processes to Ceres same. “
wAS dISCOVERED bY aN ITALIAN iN 1801 to discover Ceres was the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, exactly 1 January 1801. “I had announced this star as a comet -scriveva Piazzi in her diary more than 200 years ago – but because it is not accompanied by any nebulosity, and also its movement is so slow and rather uniform, came to my mind several times that it might be something better than a comet. “
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