Watery worlds like Ceres — a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt — hint that our solar system is wetter than we thought. And where there's water, there might be life. Discover more by clicking the link.
The icy dwarf planet Ceres appears to hold a subsurface sea. This discovery fuels the hunt for life beyond Earth. This article appeared inannual state of science issue as “New Oceans in the Cosmos.” Support our science journalism by becoming aCrouched in the rocky confines of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, an icy sphere the size of Texas has been hiding a secret. This dwarf planet, called Ceres, is actually an ocean world, astronomers revealed in 2020.
Astronomers say they’re piecing together a surprising view of a wet solar system with many hidden potential abodes for life. That finding is “one of the most profound discoveries in planetary science in the Space Age,” says astronomer Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, who also heads NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
Yet, as Dawn approached, the spacecraft’s cameras revealed a number of strange white spots, most prominently inside the 57-mile-wide Occator Crater. That find proved key to explaining Ceres’ history. Meanwhile, a new analysis of data from NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, combined with fresh modeling of the world’s formation, suggests that the dwarf planet developed early on in our solar system’s history, with a liquid ocean. But how could such a small world keep a liquid ocean from freezing?
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