{"id":19131,"date":"2016-12-16T01:16:55","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T17:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/water-water-everywhere-on-ceres-ice-lies-just-below-dwarf-planets-surface\/"},"modified":"2016-12-16T01:16:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T17:16:55","slug":"water-water-everywhere-on-ceres-ice-lies-just-below-dwarf-planets-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/water-water-everywhere-on-ceres-ice-lies-just-below-dwarf-planets-surface\/","title":{"rendered":"Water, water everywhere on Ceres: Ice lies just below dwarf planet\u2019s surface"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_297296\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-297296\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-297296\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161215-water-ceres-630x552.jpg\" alt=\"Hydrogen on Ceres\" width=\"630\" height=\"552\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161215-water-ceres-630x552.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161215-water-ceres-768x673.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/161215-water-ceres.jpg 1168w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-297296\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft determined the hydrogen content of the upper yard, or meter, of Ceres\u2019 surface. Blue indicates where hydrogen content is higher, near the poles, while red indicates lower content at lower latitudes. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA \/ PSI Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Readings from instruments aboard NASA\u2019s Dawn orbiter support the view that a treasure trove of frozen water lies just beneath the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers&nbsp;reported those findings today at the American Geophysical Union\u2019s fall meeting San Francisco, as well as in two papers published by Nature Astronomy and Science.<\/p>\n<p>The findings are based on hydrogen readings from Dawn\u2019s gamma ray and neutron detector, or GRaND, as well as from the spacecraft\u2019s cameras and infrared mapping spectrometer.<\/p>\n<p>GRaND\u2019s science team found ample evidence of hydrogen on Ceres, with higher concentrations at mid- to high latitudes. That\u2019s consistent with the presence of broad expanses of water ice within a yard (meter) of the surface.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Ceres, ice is not just localized to a few craters. It\u2019s everywhere, and nearer to the surface with higher latitudes,\u201d GRaND principal investigator Thomas Prettyman, who\u2019s based at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, said in a NASA news release.<\/p>\n<p>GRaND\u2019s readings suggest that there\u2019s a porous mixture of rocky materials on Ceres\u2019 surface, with ice filling the pores. The ice makes up about 10 percent of the mixture by weight.<\/p>\n<p><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" class=\"\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block; flex-grow: 1;\" title=\"X Post\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=b0yle&amp;dnt=true&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=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%3D%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=809470742513364992&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geekwire.com%2F2016%2Fwater-ceres-ice-dawn%2F&amp;sessionId=7f95af99c30557c40f2669bad305658ca4593a2d&amp;siteScreenName=geekwire&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=6a3ad42b224df%3A1778106238597&amp;width=550px\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\" data-twitter-extracted-i1782803711278802187=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ice is everywhere on dwarf planet #Ceres, including &#8220;cold traps&#8221; like this shadowy crater. @NASA_Dawn #AGU16 news at https:\/\/t.co\/kFLV3cRHcf pic.twitter.com\/bPa8qwowI6<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) December 15, 2016<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Prettyman and his team had their paper published in Science. The Nature Astronomy paper focused on a different line of evidence: images from Dawn that show deposits of bright material at the bottom of about 10 shadowed craters out of the hundreds identified in Ceres\u2019 northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n<p>This bright material is different from the bright spots for which Ceres is most famous. Those once-mysterious spots are now thought to consist primarily of bright-colored, highly reflective salts.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn\u2019s infrared mapping spectrometer confirmed that the bright material lying within a partially sunlit crater was ice.<\/p>\n<p>Such findings suggest that frozen water can build up at the bottoms of cold, dark craters on Ceres. Such \u201ccold traps\u201d have been spotted on Mercury and on Earth\u2019s moon as well. In those cases, scientists say that the ice was most likely delivered by cosmic impacts, and that stray water molecules found their way to the cold traps.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn\u2019s researchers haven\u2019t yet made up their mind about the scenario on Ceres.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are interested in how this ice got there, and how it managed to last so long,\u201d said the University of Hawaii\u2019s Norbert Schorghofer, a co-author of the Nature Astronomy paper. \u201cIt could have come from Ceres\u2019 ice-rich crust, or it could have been delivered from space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Water in the shadows\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yIdSS56Wxzc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The prevalence of water is intriguing for several reasons. First, it provides clues as to Ceres\u2019 origins.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese studies&nbsp;support the idea that ice separated from rock early in Ceres\u2019 history, forming an ice-rich crustal layer, and that ice has remained near the surface over the history of the solar system,\u201d the Dawn mission\u2019s deputy principal investigator, Carol Raymond of NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in today\u2019s release.<\/p>\n<p>Another angle has to do with the fact that water is an essential ingredient for life as we know it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy finding bodies that were water-rich in the distant past, we can discover clues as to where life may have existed in the early solar system,\u201d Raymond said.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, water ice is considered a valuable resource for space settlement and in-space resupply. Ceres may well be an attractive way station if humanity ever makes it to the main asteroid belt, more than 230 million miles beyond Earth\u2019s orbit. And maybe not just Ceres.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u201dThe evidence strengthens the case for the presence of near-surface water ice on other main-belt asteroids,\u201d Prettyman said.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn was launched in 2007 and orbited the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and 2012. Then it headed onward to enter orbit around Ceres in 2015. The spacecraft began its extended mission phase in July and is currently flying in an elliptical orbit that takes it more than 4,500 miles from Ceres.<\/p>\n<p>Check out this video of today\u2019s briefing at the AGU meeting:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"FM16 Press Conference: Dawn science update\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6X6MhN_Kdak?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft determined the hydrogen content of the upper yard, or meter, of Ceres\u2019 surface. Blue indicates where hydrogen content is higher, near the poles, while red indicates lower content at lower latitudes. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA \/ PSI Photo) Readings from instruments aboard NASA\u2019s Dawn orbiter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2838,5133,2840],"class_list":["post-19131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ceres","tag-dawn-probe","tag-dwarf-planets"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}