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posted by chromas on Tuesday August 11 2020, @10:50AM   Printer-friendly

Nasa reveals findings from journey to mysterious world at the edge of solar system:

Nasa has revealed its observations from a trip to Ceres[*], the mysterious world hovering at the edge of our solar system.

Ceres is a dwarf planet, and the largest of the huge number of objects that are found in the asteroid belt at the far reaches of our planetary neighbourhood.

Now scientists using data from Nasa observations of the world have revealed a host of new information about that distant dwarf planet.

[...] "Long believed to be a primitive body, Ceres is now an ocean world with deep brines at a regional and potentially global scale," wrote Nasa's Julie Castillo-Rogez, a planetary scientist who did not work on the study. She urged more research and a follow-up mission that could study the evolution of the planet – and its "potential habitability".

[...] The research shows that Ceres is an ocean world, and that it may have been geologically active in the recent past.

And it also adds yet more wonder to the planet, suggesting that the various glowing parts of the surface were formed from different sources.

The findings are discussed in seven new papers published in Nature journals, offering a variety of new information about the dwarf planet.

[*] From the Ceres entry on Wikipedia:

Ceres (/ˈsɪəriːz/;[16] minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is the largest object in the main asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. With a diameter of 940 km (580 mi), Ceres is both the largest of the asteroids and the only dwarf planet inside Neptune's orbit. It is the 25th-largest body in the Solar System within the orbit of Neptune.

Journal References:

  • P. Schenk, J. Scully, D. Buczkowski, et al. Impact heat driven volatile redistribution at Occator crater on Ceres as a comparative planetary process [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17184-7)
  • B. E. Schmidt, H. G. Sizemore, K. H. G. Hughson, et al. Post-impact cryo-hydrologic formation of small mounds and hills in Ceres’s Occator crater, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0581-6)
  • M. C. De Sanctis, E. Ammannito, A. Raponi, et al. Fresh emplacement of hydrated sodium chloride on Ceres from ascending salty fluids, Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1138-8
  • A. Nathues, N. Schmedemann, G. Thangjam, et al. Recent cryovolcanic activity at Occator crater on Ceres, Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1146-8)
  • J. E. C. Scully, P. M. Schenk, J. C. Castillo-Rogez, et al. The varied sources of faculae-forming brines in Ceres’ Occator crater emplaced via hydrothermal brine effusion [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15973-8)
  • R. S. Park, A. S. Konopliv, A. I. Ermakov, et al. Evidence of non-uniform crust of Ceres from Dawn’s high-resolution gravity data, Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1019-1)
  • C. A. Raymond, A. I. Ermakov, J. C. Castillo-Rogez, et al. Impact-driven mobilization of deep crustal brines on dwarf planet Ceres, Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1168-2

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:43PM (3 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:43PM (#1034967)
    Didn't NASA claim that one of the Voyager probes had officially left the Solar System once it crossed the Termination Shock (at about 100AU) and thus entered interstellar space, revised it a bit when it became clear that the Heliopause was a zone, and then do so again when it turned out that the Heliopause can expand and contract? Either way, NASA seem to feel that the boundary of the solar system is the point where the solar wind is overcome by pressure of the interstellar medium, dynamic or not. By comparison, the Oort cloud is thought to extend much further than that - ranging from 1,000 to as far as 100,000AU according to some estimates - so potentially extends to within the heliopauses (and possibly even overlaps with the Oort clouds) of some of our closest stellar neighbours, so not really a suitable boundary line. (Could be a premise for a SciFi novel about why two systems go to war though - humans have gone to war over far more tenuous reasons.)

    None of which changes the fact that the original statement is completely and utterly wrong, of course.
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:10PM (2 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:10PM (#1034982) Journal
    I would put the boundary at just after anything that orbits the sun. If it's under ste suns gravitational control, it's part of our solar system. If its not (say it's just wandering through, or it's not bound to our system by gravity, it's not really part of our sun's system. But that's just me.
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    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:33PM (1 child)

      by zocalo (302) on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:33PM (#1035109)
      I'd have gone with that too, until I realised the possibility that our Oort cloud could potentially overlap with another star's; boundaries generally work better when they are a line rather than a zone, let alone when that zone is potentially half the distance between the centre of the two objects whose boundaries you are trying to define. (I suppose there's also the even more complex scenario of an Oort cloud object in a figure 8 orbit around our sun and another, although that's highly unlikely to remain stable given stellar motion.) That's not to say that members of the Sun's Oort cloud are not part of our "stellar family", but claiming they are within out solar system when they are potentially *much* closer to another star seems akin to two nations arguing over national boundaries when they both lay claim to a bunch of islands in between, and that seldom ends well - hence my SciFi plot point note.

      The Heliopause is at least a fairly absolute line, at least in terms of stellar distances. It might not be a perfect sphere (far from it, in fact), but it is something that is exclusively our solar system on one side, and everything else on the other. The boundaries might resemble a bunch of soap bubbles, each slightly deformed from those adjacent, but at least each star would have it's own exclusive zone, as defined by the area where the stellar wind moves directly away from the star, but once it changes direction you're either in the true interstellar space or have just crossed over into the area of influence of a close-neighbour star.
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      • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:43AM

        by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:43AM (#1035292) Homepage Journal

        boundaries generally work better when they are a line rather than a zone

        In this context a boundary is a surface not a line.

        two nations arguing over national boundaries when they both lay claim to a bunch of islands in between

        As France and Spain argue over Andorra. Not an island, though.

        The islands between China and Japan are much more likely to end in battles.

        -- hendrik