The dwarf planet Ceres, which lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter now, has the status of an “ocean world”.
Note various dwarf planets and the criteria making a planet dwarf, as mentioned in the B2b section.
Ceres exploration
- 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.
What does it mean to be an “ocean world”?
- 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.
- The observations from Dawn suggest the presence of briny liquid (saltwater) water under Ceres’s surface.
- 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”.
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, a possibility that has also maintained scientists’ interest in the planet Mars, whose atmosphere was once warm enough to allow water to flow through it.
- Another reason why scientists are interested in that studying it can give insights about the formation of the Solar System since it is considered to be a fossil from that time.
Back2Basics: Dwarf Planets
- As of today, 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.
- These four criteria are – that the body orbits around the Sun, it is not a moon, has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit and has enough mass for its gravity to pull it into a roughly spherical shape.
