“Something we’ve never seen before”

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is revealing the secrets of the celestial body called 2060 Chiron, which has properties of both an asteroid and a comet and has long attracted the attention of the scientific world.

Chiron was discovered in 1977 and classified as a “centaur.” With its ice and rocky structure, it resembles both an asteroid and a comet. Centaurs, named after the half-man, half-horse characters from Greek mythology, are known as celestial bodies that form in remote and cold regions of the solar system and move inward over time.

Scientists believe that as centaurs approach the sun, the ice on their surface sublimates, creating a gaseous halo, or coma, around them. However, Chiron has a much more complex structure than other members of the centaur family.

“Something we’ve never seen before”

Charles Schambeau of the University of Central Florida emphasizes that Chiron is unorthodox.

Observations with NASA's James Webb Telescope revealed that the ice on Chiron's surface is of a type never before observed on a centaur.

brings light into the past

The team discovered molecules such as water ice, ethane and propane in a centaur for the first time. Researchers believe that these molecules are formed by the interaction of sunlight with methane and water on the surface.

It is estimated that 4.5 billion years ago, in the early days of the solar system, Chiron's structure contained basic compounds such as water and carbon dioxide.

Noemi Pinilla-Alonso, one of the authors of the article, states that the centaurs have changed little over time.

Clearer observations are made

Chiron, which is expected to move closer to the Sun in the next 20 years, is getting brighter, giving scientists the opportunity for much more detailed observations. This process could explain why centaurs behave differently and answer many unanswered questions about the solar system's past.