NASA announced that the finding of organic material on the surface of the dwarf asteroid  Ceres, the largest asteroid of our Solar System, will join a long list of "boulders in the universe" containing complex molecules on a carbon base.

Astronomers seem to find organic molecules on an asteroid, comet, or meteorite almost every day, so the discovery may not seem so exciting in itself, but the joke is that what the satellite hasn't seen raises the level of mystery.

The material was found in the vicinity and directly in the Ernutet crater in the northern hemisphere of Ceres, using an automatic project probe NASA's Dawn orbiting spacecraft.

The discovery of evidence of organic molecules on the main asteroid directly from an orbital satellite is the first in space exploration and suggests how exciting things we can still expect.

"This is the first clear finding of organic molecules directly from the orbit of a body in the main asteroid belt," said researcher Maria Cristina De Sanctis of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome.

But there are two things that we should look at for this recent discovery - the relatively fragile nature of organic molecules and the fact that the molecules have not spread throughout the surface of the asteroid.

Previous research has already shown that Ceres has the right basic ingredients for organic molecules, while traces of hydrated minerals, carbonates, and ammonium-containing clays show that water has appeared on the surface and under the surface of this dwarf asteroid.

The occurrence of material detected by the visible and infrared spectrometers from the orbital probe (VIR) was mostly limited to an area of ​​about 1000 square km (400miles2), with a few isolated occurrences right next to the crater.

The question is whether the material comes directly from Ceres, or it is a trace of another asteroid, dug beneath its surface.

A team of researchers who published their discoveries in a journal Science, described the organic material as aliphatic (open carbon chain), which may help rule out one of the possibilities.

Carbon tends to form two broad groups of organic compounds - one is a cyclic (closed) form called aromatic hydrocarbons, the other being chains described as aliphatic.

Aromatic hydrocarbons with a cyclic (circular) structure have stronger bonds than aliphatic chains, which disintegrate more easily due to high temperatures, so we assume that such material is unlikely to survive the meteorite's energy impact upon impact and subsequent crater formation.

This is well seen in the amount of aromatic compounds in stone meteorites of the chondrite type, where carbon chains are relatively rare.

What's more, the impact would mix all the foreign material with the surface layer of Ceres, and it is highly unlikely that it would remain visible on the surface as a characteristic spatter of organic molecules.

With all the signs pointing to a natural origin rather than a chemical one, the question arises as to why it occurs only around the Ernutet crater and nowhere else.

Help can lie in the amount of hydrocarbons and clays in the area. Just as hot springs bubble water to the Earth's surface, Ceres has hydrothermal activities in its cold outer shell, saturating its surface with water heavily enriched with salt and nitrogen-saturated clays.

In fact, one of the first, great mysteries of the dwarf asteroid is the number of clear footpaths visible on its surface.

The occurrence was originally considered water ice, later concluded to be sodium-carbon salts left on the surface as a result of splashing saline solution from the subterranean ocean and sublimating in a cold environment approaching a vacuum.

Of course, there is still a mystery about why aliphatic compounds are only seen on this particular part of Ceres. Hopefully, future studies will allow us to understand.

The fact that there is such a mixture of water, organic material and nitrogen on Ceres is exciting for all scientists who are concerned with the origin of life on Earth.

"This discovery will contribute to our understanding of the possible formation of water and organisms on Earth," said Julie Castillo-Rogez, a Dawn project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Asteroids give us a picture of the early evolution of our Solar System, while as the tiny, independent worlds they develop in their own way.

While this may just look like another boring stain of carbon on the orbiting boulder, its obscure nature can hide the help of how organic matter has developed into a life form here on Earth.

This research was published in Science.