One of the famous mysteries of Ceres is the presence of more than 130 bright areas on its surface, mostly associated with impact craters.
The dwarf planet Ceres, which scientists are struggling to unravel the mysteries, could be a “world ocean” where liquid water flowing under its surface, according to a series of studies published Monday.
Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was in turn considered as a planet in full, then an asteroid and now a dwarf planet. But whatever its name, it has never ceased to intrigue scientists.
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In 2015, after a voyage of seven and a half years, the u.s. spacecraft Dawn is placed in orbit around the enigmatic sphere located between Mars and Jupiter, in the solar system. It was the first visit of a vessel automatic around such a celestial body.
With its diameter of about 950 km, Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt. It is the equivalent of 4.61 earth years to circle the Sun.
“the liquid water”
From the end of 2018, the probe Dawn, in lack of fuel, no longer transmits anything to the scholars, but the latter continue to dissect the images and data incredible that she has collected. For the work described, this Monday, in seven studies published in the journals Nature, Astronomy, Nature Geoscience and Nature Communications.
One of the famous mysteries of Ceres is the presence of more than 130 bright areas on its surface, mostly associated with impact craters. Gold in its final phase, Dawn has orbité only 35 km from Ceres, focusing precisely on Occator, one of its craters older than 20 million years.
IN a VIDEO >> A brief overview of the dwarf planet Ceres
According to the authors of a study, led by Carol Raymond of the California Institute of Technology in the United States, a vast reservoir of brine, a saturated aqueous solution of salt, is hidden in the crater. In another article, Maria Cristina De Sanctis, national Institute for astrophysics in Italy and his colleagues report the presence of chloride of sodium hydrate over a large area of bright crater of the Occator.
For Maria Cristina De Sanctis, “these results show that there is liquid water under the surface of the planet” and that Ceres is “a sort of world ocean, such as some moons of Saturn and Jupiter”.
“The materials found on Ceres is extremely important in terms of astrobiology”, since “we know that these minerals are all critical for the emergence of life,” she says to AFP.
