Life materials and a series of shocking things appear on the 'lost planet'

Ceres, the mysterious dwarf planet, the largest object in the asteroid belt, continues to amaze astronomers with what it possesses.

Research just published in Nature Communications says deposits of salt and organic compounds have been discovered in Ceres' third largest impact crater, along with traces of geological activity that occurred at least once in many millions of years. years after the object was formed.

Ceres, which is the only dwarf planet located inside the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, has a diameter of 960km and was once thought to be the eighth planet of the Solar System a few centuries ago. But then with more advanced astronomical techniques, scientists determined it was quite small and just a dwarf planet.

Ceres . map

However, Ceres has not ceased to amaze when it has been "well cared for" in recent years, but the most shocking discovery is the traces of the underground ocean beneath the cold crust, as well as signs of geological activity matter. In the planetary world, geological activity, which in the whole Solar System only Earth and Jupiter's moon Io are officially claimed to possess, is one of the essentials for life.

According to SciTech Daily, in this new study, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the University of Munster (Germany) and the National Institute of Science Education (NISER - India) aimed at 3 impact craters.

The bright spots previously recorded by NASA's Dawn spacecraft at the given Occator crater turned out to be the remnants of a subsurface layer of salt water, which rose gradually through freezing processes up to time. recent geologic period.

While at the Ernutet crater, they found evidence of very complex organic matter, which promises to provide a lot of data about the origin of life in the Solar System.

The study continued to target Urvala in the southern hemisphere, the largest impact crater with a diameter of 170km, within which there are ridges and other complex landforms. They also noticed a combination of salt deposits and strange organic compounds on the western slopes of the central mountain range.

"The origin and formation of organic compounds on Ceres remains an interesting open question, with important implications for the overall geological history of Ceres as well as its potential connection to astrobiology. and the habitability of celestial bodies in the Solar System," said Dr. Guneshwar Thangjam from NISER.