Posted on 08/10/2020 4:46:24 PM PDT by NRx
The dwarf planet Ceres – long believed to be a barren space rock – is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday.
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface.
Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analysed images relayed from the orbiter, captured about 35km (22 miles) from the asteroid.
They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and determined that there is an “extensive reservoir” of brine beneath its surface.
Several studies published on Monday in the journals Nature Astronomy, Nature Geoscience and Nature Communications also shed further light on the dwarf planet, which was discovered by the Italian polymath Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801.
Using infrared imaging, one team discovered the presence of the compound hydrohalite – a material common in sea ice but which until now had never been observed off of Earth.
Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome’s Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica said hydrohalite was a clear sign Ceres used to have sea water.
“We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons,” she told AFP.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Well that throws a major part of the storyline for The Expanse into the trash bin.
Always amazed by their cavalier assignment of dating to any object, mush less one they have never touched or tested. A picture is only a picture.
Surf’s up on Ceres!
My thoughts as well, but maybe not. Perhaps Ceres is perfect because there IS water, but also plenty of rock to burrow into. I guess that would sorta make the whole point of ice haulers towing ice to Ceres moot though.
I didn’t consider the ice hauler part. That’s a further complication.
Then again, the protomolecule turned Ceres into a wasteland which then plunged into Venus, so I suppose it’s only complicated for the first two books.
Now Kevin Costner has a place to go after Yellowstone.
BFD i want to see indictments and frog marches
Shocking, especially considering that every object with mass has its own gravity (except for Dick Cheney who has gravitas).
Anyone else find Carolyn Porco kinda hawt?
Water Stop for the road trip to Mars Ping!
“extensive reservoir” of brine beneath its surface.
Well that’s just great. A dwarf planet of sea monkeys.
It was EROS that was sent into Venus.
Yes, I read all the books and watched all the TV and enjoyed every bit of it :).
Crap, you’re right. I devoured the books in about a month of cross country flights. Can’t wait for the final one! Looks like I need to go back to read them again if I forgot something as simple as this. Thanks for the refresher.
“A dwarf planet of sea monkeys.”
Thank you Santa Claus!
Edgar Rice Burroughs would’ve had a field day with this news.
One of my favorite movie scenes.
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