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OCEAN WORLD
- Researchers have shed new light on the dwarf planet Ceres, which lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is also the largest object in that belt.
- Ceres now has the status of an “ocean world”, after scientists analysed data collected by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft.
- Their findings have been published as a series of papers in the journals Nature Astronomy, Nature Communications and Nature Geoscience.
What is a dwarf planet?
- There are officially five dwarf planets in our Solar System. The most famous is Pluto, downgraded from the status of a planet in 2006.
- The other four, in order of size, are Eris, Makemake, Haumea and Ceres. The sixth claimant for a dwarf planet is Hygiea, which so far has been taken to be an asteroid.
Ceres exploration in the past
- The dwarf planet was first spotted by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801, who assumed that Ceres was the missing planet between Mars and Jupiter. It was classified as a dwarf planet in 2006 and is the first dwarf planet to be orbited by a spacecraft. In 2015, NASA’s Dawn reached it to study its surface, composition and history.
- Dawn was launched in 2007 and visited Vesta and Ceres. In 2015, it went into the orbit around Ceres and the information it collected reinforced the idea that dwarf planets could have hosted oceans over a significant part of their history. The mission concluded in 2018.
Why do researchers study Ceres?
- Scientists are interested in this dwarf planet because it hosts the possibility of having water, something that many other planets do not have. Therefore, scientists look for signs of life on Ceres.
- The possibility of the presence of water on celestial bodies makes them more intriguing for scientists since “almost everywhere we find water on Earth, we find life,” as NASA puts it.Another reason why scientists are interested in the dwarf planet Ceres is because studying it can give insights about the formation of the Solar System since it is considered to be a fossil from that time.
What does it mean to be an ‘ocean world’?
- Ceres, NASA has said, “is a crucial piece of the ocean worlds puzzle”. “With a crust that mixes ice, salts, rock-forming minerals and other materials, Ceres looks to be a remnant “ocean world,” wearing the chemistry of its old ocean and records of the interaction on its surface.” Scientists are interested in exploring ocean worlds because they may support life.
- Before the mission ended in October 2018, the spacecraft dipped to less than 35 km above the surface of the dwarf planet, due to which it was able to collect data in a higher resolution.
What does it mean to be an ‘ocean world’?
- Now, by analysing this data, which was collected at the end of the mission, scientists have determined that Ceres has a brine reservoir located about 40 km deep and which is hundreds of miles wide, making the dwarf planet, “water rich”.
- There are other dwarf planets and moons in our solar system where oceans exist, including the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
OCEAN WORLD
- Ardern, who could have extended voting day until November 21, said on Monday that she would be postponing it by four weeks, and would not be considering any further extensions.
- The decision, taken after consultations with all parties in the country’s parliament, is expected to cause logistical issues, such as ensuring that election workers would be available on the new date.
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