Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was the same age as the Sun – RIA Novosti

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© Photo: ESA / Rosetta / Navcam

© ESA / ATG medialab

MOSCOW, March 10 – RIA Novosti . New data from the probe “Rosetta” helped scientists calculate the age of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and find out that she is the same age as the solar system was born about 4.6 billion years ago, according to a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The main task of the probe “Rosetta”, launched to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2004, was the search for traces of “primordial matter” of the solar system, as well as evaluation of the comet age and disclosure of the vicissitudes of being formed its core, and “buds” all existing planets.

Musisi Olivier (Olivier Mousis) from the University of Aix-Marseille (France) and his colleagues found the answer to the latter question. In addition, studying the composition of the inclusions in the ice of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko with instruments “Rosetta”, they measured the protoplanetary disk temperature, which was born our star, the Earth and other planets.

© Photo: ESA / Rosetta / MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / SSO / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA

Scientists are not interested in the proportion of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in cometary ice and water vapor in the tail of the comet, and the ratio of the isotopes and molecules of different chemicals – argon, nitrogen and carbon monoxide. Their proportion, as they say planetary scientists, is a kind of “passport” a celestial body that contains information about his age and place of birth.

This is due to the fact that the grains of ice accumulated in the protoplanetary nebula, where the sun was born, lived a completely different life in the near and distant corners of the lights in the first era of the life of the solar system. For example, amorphous ice particles fall into the “warm” part of the protoplanetary disk within the orbit of Pluto, were melted young emit light and then re-frozen, which significantly changed their composition.

This chemical “passport” of the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, showed that it was formed in the proximal portion of the protoplanetary disk from the “local” stock of crystalline water ice, almost simultaneously with the birth of the solar system itself. The small amount of argon and carbon monoxide in these ice shows that the comet was born at very low temperatures – approximately 40 degrees Kelvin, which is minus 233 degrees Celsius.

© Photo: ESA / Rosetta / NAVCAM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

This is a very important conclusion, which shows that the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko and its “neighbor” of the number of comets that live in the vicinity of Jupiter’s orbit, indeed formed from primordial matter of the solar system, rather than resulted from accumulation of interstellar “icicles” on the distant approaches her after the formation of the Sun

on the one hand, this is good news -. comet really can be used to explore the secrets of the early solar system. On the other hand, this scenario raises questions about the formation of Jupiter, in whose depths much greater than all three substances than in the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. As scientists hope, “Rosetta” and will help to find the answer to this puzzle.