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The dwarf planet Ceres may be home to an underground ocean

By Layal Liverpool

Occator is a large luminous crater on the surface of Ceres

NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA


The discovery of salt bound to water molecules on Ceres, the largest asteroid in the solar system, suggests that there may be an ocean hidden under its Occator crater.

“I am extremely excited to find evidence of the presence of liquid water, as well as the fact that this body contains a lot of minerals that are very interesting for the formation of life,” says Maria Cristina De Sanctis of the National Institute of Astrophysics in Italy. “It’s a good combination of chemical compounds that help form biological molecules,” she says.

De Sanctis and his colleagues analyzed high-resolution images of Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft, which circled the dwarf planet between 2015 and 2018, before running out of fuel. In its final phase, the spacecraft orbited just 35 kilometers above the surface of Ceres, focusing on the 20 million year old Occator crater.

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Earlier observations of shiny deposits on the crater had suggested the presence of salt water below. But the discovery of hydrated sodium chloride provides much stronger evidence of a subterranean ocean, De Sanctis says. These types of salts are extremely important in keeping water liquid, she says.

De Sanctis and his team were able to identify the salt by comparing data, including imagery and spectral analysis, from the Dawn spacecraft with an equivalent analysis of chemicals here on Earth. “Comparing with the data we have on Ceres, we can say yes, it’s very similar,” says De Sanctis.

Impact fractures at the surface of Occator Crater, analyzed in a separate study, suggest the ocean is about 40 kilometers below the surface, although the exact size is unknown. “It’s big enough,” says De Sanctis, adding that the presence of such a large body will certainly have influenced the geology of Ceres, with water coming from below the surface and bringing minerals with it.

“The mineralogy is unique and so far unobserved on other bodies in the solar system,” explains Ralf Jaumann at the Free University of Berlin in Germany. Jaumann says these findings demonstrate that even small bodies like Ceres could have water inside.

Journal reference: Nature astronomy, DOI: 10.1038 / s41550-020-1138-8

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