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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Dawn Finds Possible Ancient Ocean Remnants at Ceres [nasa.gov]

Minerals containing water are widespread on Ceres, suggesting the dwarf planet may have had a global ocean in the past. What became of that ocean? Could Ceres still have liquid today? Two new studies from NASA's Dawn mission shed light on these questions.

The Dawn team found that Ceres' crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials that were subjected to past and possibly recent geologic activity, and that this crust represents most of that ancient ocean. The second study builds off the first and suggests there is a softer, easily deformable layer beneath Ceres' rigid surface crust, which could be the signature of residual liquid left over from the ocean, too.

"More and more, we are learning that Ceres is a complex, dynamic world that may have hosted a lot of liquid water in the past, and may still have some underground," said Julie Castillo-Rogez, Dawn project scientist and co-author of the studies, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Ceres [wikipedia.org].

Constraints on Ceres' internal structure and evolution from its shape and gravity measured by the Dawn spacecraft [wiley.com] (open, DOI: 10.1002/2017JE005302) (DX [doi.org])

The interior structure of Ceres as revealed by surface topography [sciencedirect.com] (DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2017.07.053) (DX [doi.org])

Previously: Dawn Spies Magnesium Sulphate and Possible Geological Activity on Ceres [soylentnews.org]
Ceres's Cryovolcanoes Viscously Relax Into Nothingness [soylentnews.org]
Organic Molecules Found on Ceres [soylentnews.org]
Early Asteroids May Have Been Made of Mud Rather Than Rock [soylentnews.org]
Dawn Mission Extended at Ceres [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission