Dawn Finds Dwarf Planet Ceres is a Water-Rich World
Ceres is rich with water, the Dawn spacecraft finds. What can this mean for finding life on other worlds?
Ceres is the largest dwarf planet in the inner solar system, and new findings from the Dawn spacecraft reveal this body is covered in salty oceans.
Data from the Dawn spacecraft, the first robotic explorer to orbit a dwarf planet, revealed this icy body was surprisingly active, housing an ocean far deeper than any found on Earth.
Are you Ceresius?
First seen on January 1, 1801, Ceres was tracked for 41 days by an Italian monk named Giuseppe Piazzi, before he fell ill. Just at this time, Ceres moved into the halo of the Sun, leaving other astronomers without the ability to confirm the discovery.
The famed astronomer Johannes Kepler had earlier predicted that a planet should orbit in between Mars and Jupiter. When first seen by Piazzi, Ceres was thought to be that predicted planet.
With less than six weeks of observations and Kepler’s equations, the mathematics of the early 19th Century was unable to accurately predict the position of the newly-discovered body, making finding that world once more exceptionally challenging.
Ceres was eventually re-discovered, but it was not long classified as a planet…
