2024-10-08 14:14:04
Researchers from the USA have gained new insights into the dwarf planet Ceres. There is evidence that there was once a muddy ocean there.
Space holds many secrets. Some of them will probably never be revealed by humanity. But with the help of modern technology, scientists can always make interesting and sometimes groundbreaking discoveries in the infinite expanses of space.
A research team from the USA has now managed to do this again. Doctoral student Ian Pamerleau from Purdue University in the US state of Indiana, his supervisor Mike Sori and scientist Jennifer Scully from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to gain new insights into the dwarf planet Ceres.
Ceres is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is 946 kilometers in diameter. The NASA probe “Dawn” examined the dwarf planet between 2015 and 2018 and collected a lot of data during this time. With the help of computer simulations, the researchers were now able to find out that there was once a muddy ocean on the surface of Ceres.
“Various surface features such as pits, domes and landslides indicate that the near subsurface of Ceres contains a lot of ice,” said Pamerleau. Data and measurements of Ceres’ gravitational field also indicate the presence of ice beneath the surface.
“Our interpretation of all this is that Ceres was once an oceanic world like Europa (editor’s note: Jupiter’s moon Europa, which has an icy shell), but with a dirty, muddy ocean,” explains scientist Sori. Over time, this ocean then solidified, forming a frozen crust with trapped rock.
Unlike the icy moons Europa and Enceladus, Ceres could be easier to explore because it is much closer to Earth. “Ceres is therefore, in our opinion, the most accessible icy world in the universe,” says Sori. Where there were oceans, there could always have been life. Therefore, further study of Ceres could help explore this possibility.