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Widespread CO2 and CO ices in the trans-Neptunian population revealed by JWST/DiSCo-TNOs

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Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most abundant ices in the Solar System. It has been detected in giant planet atmospheres and on their moons, on and around comets, and even in regions of Mercury, the Moon and Mars. However, despite formation in the coldest regions of the protoplanetary disk, CO2 has not previously been detected throughout the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Furthermore, carbon monoxide (CO) was detected to be present on the surface of only the largest TNOs. Out of 59 TNOs and centaurs observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the NIRSpec Integral Field Unit as part of the DiSCo-TNOs project (PID 2418), we report the widespread detection of CO2 ice in 95% of the sample and CO ice in 47% of the sample. CO is predominantly found in objects where the abundance of CO2 is higher. The abundance and characteristics of these ices suggest the prevalence of at least two types of TNO surfaces. The differences in compositions between these groups can be attributed to different formation regions in the protoplanetary disk, where the ability to accrete or maintain the CO2 ice played a major role in the subsequent evolution of TNO surfaces. Although the nature of the CO remains elusive, its correlation with an augmented abundance of CO2 suggests a potential production mechanism involving the irradiation of carbon-bearing ices.

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Fig. 1: The CO2 and CO signatures in the spectra of TNOs observed by DiSCo-JWST.
Fig. 2: CO2 and CO detections among TNOs.
Fig. 3: Distribution of CO2 fundamental band depth in relation to the visible slope and diameter.
Fig. 4: The CO2 absorption band centre position.
Fig. 5: CO2 reflectance models.

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Data availability

The JWST data used in this analysis are publicly available from the archive STScI MAST.

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Acknowledgements

The DiSCo-TNO team would like to thank W. Eck and A. Henry of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) for their help in preparing the observations for execution, B. Blacker for his almost invisible and always helpful presence from submission to publication at the STScI office, and the Time Allocation and Executive Committees of the JWST because their generous effort and good work are essential for the scientific success of this impressive telescope. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST. The data were obtained from MAST at STScI, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme 2418. Support for programme 2418 was provided by NASA through a grant from STScI. This work used several open-source Python programming language tools68,79,80,81,82,83,84. R.B. and E.H. acknowledge support from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (JWST mission). N.P. acknowledges funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology, Portugal (Research Grant Nos. UIDB/04434/2020 and UIDP/04434/2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Space Institute, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Mário N. De Prá, Noemí Pinilla-Alonso, Ana Carolina de Souza Feliciano & Charles A. Schambeau

  2. Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France

    Elsa Hénault & Rosario Brunetto

  3. Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Bryan J. Holler & John A. Stansberry

  4. Observatorio Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Coordenação de Astronomia e Astrofísica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Jorge M. Carvano

  5. University of Central Florida, Department of Physics, Orlando, FL, USA

    Brittany Harvison, Yvonne J. Pendleton & Dale P. Cruikshank

  6. Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Spain

    Javier Licandro & Vania Lorenzi

  7. Universidad de La Laguna, Departamento de Astrofísica, La Laguna, Spain

    Javier Licandro

  8. Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Garching, Germany

    Thomas G. Müller

  9. Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Nuno Peixinho

  10. Fundación Galileo Galilei-INAF, Tenerife, Spain

    Vania Lorenzi

  11. Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes, Environnement, CNRS, UCBL, ENSL, Villeurbanne, France

    Aurélie Guilbert-Lepoutre

  12. University of Canterbury, School of Physical and Chemical Sciences – Te Kura Matū, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Michele T. Bannister

  13. Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

    Lucas McClure & Joshua P. Emery

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  1. Mário N. De Prá
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Contributions

N.P.A., V.L., M.D.P., B.H. and J.S. designed the observational programme. N.P.A., R.B., M.D.P., J.L., Y.P., D.C., T.M., J.S. and J.E. conceived the science goals of DiSCo. B.H., N.P.A., A.C.d.S.F., M.D.P. and C.S. reduced and validated the data. M.D.P. performed the statistical analysis, ran the compositional models, and did the overall analysis and interpretation of the results. E.H. calculated the band parameters, did the comparison with laboratory data, and performed the overall analysis and interpretation of results. N.P.A., B.J.H., R.B. and A.C.d.S.F. contributed significantly to the reduction of the data, the assessment of the quality of the data and the discussion and interpretation of the results. J.C. participated in the development and discussion of the modelling technique. T.M. provided the size, albedo and temperature calculation. All authors reviewed the manuscript and contributed to the discussion of the results.

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Correspondence to Mário N. De Prá.

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De Prá, M.N., Hénault, E., Pinilla-Alonso, N. et al. Widespread CO2 and CO ices in the trans-Neptunian population revealed by JWST/DiSCo-TNOs. Nat Astron (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02276-x

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