A groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications has shed new light on the formation of carbon in space rocks, which could hold the key to understanding how planets like Earth came into existence. Researchers discovered that when small rocks collide with each other, carbon appears to be blown into space, leading to a crucial reevaluation of the planet-building process.
According to lead author Kosuke Kurosawa, the discovery is significant because it reveals that carbon’s presence in space rocks can be wiped away by explosive chemical reactions, making it challenging to find evidence of ancient collisions. This finding has implications for understanding how planets formed and evolved over time.
The study focused on two types of meteorites: those with and without carbon. Using a novel setup, researchers examined the gases produced when pellets were fired into sample meteorites, revealing that both hot carbon monoxide and hot carbon dioxide gases were present in collisions involving rocks with carbon.
One of the key targets for this research is Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe that searching for carbon on Ceres could provide valuable insights into the early formation of our solar system.
The Ceres sample return mission, which has received recommendations from NASA’s National Academies Planetary Science Decadal Survey, aims to search for organic materials on the dwarf planet. However, funding issues have delayed the mission until 2026, and budget cuts threaten to impact the project.
Despite these challenges, researchers remain optimistic about the potential of this mission to uncover the secrets of carbon formation in space rocks. As Julie Castillo-Rodriguez, a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted, “It’s really cool. It’s inclusive. And because they work with very tiny samples, it must have taken them a very long time to get all that material and all these results.”
Source: https://www.salon.com/2025/05/25/return-to-ceres-this-dwarf-planet-could-contain-the-clues-to-lifes-origins