Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Floating Between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres May Have More Water Than Earth (nasa.gov)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the drinks-from-dwarf-planets dept.

This week NASA's Dawn space probe swooped within 22 miles of the surface of Ceres, the dwarf planet that's the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA's JPL reports: In more than three years of orbiting Ceres, Dawn's lowest altitude before this month was 240 miles (385 kilometers), so the data from this current orbit bring the dwarf planet into much sharper focus... "[T]he results are better than we had ever hoped," said Dawn's chief engineer and project manager, Marc Rayman, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Dawn is like a master artist, adding rich details to the otherworldly beauty in its intimate portrait of Ceres."
EarthSky reports NASA captured an up-close glimpse of those tantalizing bright spots on Ceres: The spots, evaporate deposits composed of sodium carbonate, are thought to be left over from when water came up to the surface from deeper below and then evaporated in the extremely tenuous and sporadic water vapor "atmosphere." That water could be either from a shallow sub-surface reservoir or from a deeper reservoir of salty brines percolating upward through fractures. The deposits in Occator Crater are the largest and brightest of these deposits. As with many discoveries in planetary science, they were completely unexpected, and show that Ceres is not just an inert ball of rock and ice.
Slashdot reader thegameiam adds: Ceres may have more fresh water than exists on Earth. Perhaps this would make colonization of the asteroid belt more of a possibility?

16 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Ceres: having more water than Earth... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Ceres: having more water than Earth since at least 2005"

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  2. We have to get our collective ... by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... lazy and stupid assess out there into space. Humanity has yet so much to do but somehow only the war mongering and pretty idiots seem to be in charge. How I wish we could move on further and faster than we are. .... I really wish to see the Advent of feasible space colonization in my lifetime. That would be cool. And restore my faith in humanity.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re: We have to get our collective ... by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's a good thing Europe got it's shit together before exploring the Americas, or the whole project would have just been one massive waste of time.

    2. Re: We have to get our collective ... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      I think you were trying to be sarcastic, buEurope did get it's shit together before exploring. I mean, the Vikings were in the Americas first, and look how well that did for them.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    3. Re: We have to get our collective ... by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Funny

      Back then people knew how to use apostrophe's.

      Oop's!

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re: We have to get our collective ... by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2

      Well, the colonizing countries had strong and increasing national unification going, effective international coordination (from the Pope), solid industrial/economic bases with governments generating surpluses, recovery from the black death, and a resurgence in the use of science to make predictions as opposed to be guided by 2000 year old documents. With the exception of not having the plague, which of those are we doing now?

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    5. Re: We have to get our collective ... by Whibla · · Score: 2

      It's amazing how we are able to explore the surface of the Moon, Mars, etc, yet still have not been able to explore the bottom of the oceans on Earth.

      I'm sorry to say you are incorrect.

      There have been several descents into the Mariana Trench, which is the 'deepest' part of the oceans: roughly 11 km.

      The difficulty is, of course, largely due to pressure, or perhaps pressure differences. The difference between the vacuum of space and atmosphere at sea level is ... well, one atmosphere; the difference between the bottom of the Mariana Trench and atmosphere at sea level is more like 1085 atmospheres. Given this difference you might be able to see why visiting is not a common occurrence, despite being possible.

  3. While I agree with you on some level Qbert... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What you said is exactly why your premise is WRONG. We have to fix ourselves before we can survive in space. Earth is a huge ship and we are fucking it up faster than we can even reasonably escape it. This is the problem to fix.

    Any hope of surviving in space is dashed if we can't make Earth sustainable, this is a fucking shit show so far. We need to put SCIENCE in the driver's seat, not old moneyed coal traitor-barons of the 1800's.

    1. Re:While I agree with you on some level Qbert... by macraig · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Have you considered that we evolve the species epigenetically through BEHAVIOR and the choices we make in our lifetimes? Perhaps what he suggests is precisely how we evolve ourselves to be less selfish and more cooperative: it's an endeavor that would require global participation and cooperation. That cooperation might be grudging during our lifetimes, but if that behavior becomes ingrained in our epigenetics then we might indeed achieve what you want at the same time. You think that these two activities must be separate and one precede the other, but I'm not so certain.

  4. Oh science... by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why must you screw up so many science fiction plots? How's the protomolecule supposed to get loose on Eros if the Cant' isn't hauling all of that ice from Saturn to Ceres?

    --
    Imagine all the people...
  5. G&T? by jabberw0k · · Score: 2

    so if Ceres has plenty of ice-cold water and carbonate, where's my gin asteroid?

    1. Re:G&T? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      While there have been some promising early observations, no one yet has directly observed the hoped-for geysers of juniper.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  6. Confusing title, FRESH water by surd1618 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not only is this not news, but also the title of the post is confusing.
    The article says, Ceres may have more water (total) than Earth has fresh.
    The posting makes it sounds like Ceres has more water than we have in the oceans. Fresh water is only 2.5% of the water on Earth.

  7. Beltalowda by Xord · · Score: 2

    Beltalowda, To pochuye ke?

  8. Drop it on Mars by eagl · · Score: 2

    Drop the thing on Mars. Sure sure sure, make it as *slow* of a drop as possible, but still. Kersplash!

    I'll even give a sample business model.

    Rockets
    Tesla car in outer space
    David Bowie song
    Rogue "dwarf planet" with lots of water
    Mars
    Profit!

  9. Re:Umm, No? by RockDoctor · · Score: 2

    1-Ceres isn't physically large enough to have more water than Earth. If it were 100% liquid water, it still would amount to less than half the amount of water on Earth

    Let's check that - mass of Ceres is approximately 0.0009393 * 10^24kg, while Earth is 5.97 * 10^24kg, for a ratio of 0.00016 (0.016%). My collection of bits of solar system data gives the proportion of water (by mass) in Earth as 0.00022. that would be about 1.4 Ceres masses. Not a wild disagreement, since we've considerable uncertainty about the water content of the Mantle (80-odd % of the mass of the Earth).

    Actually that would mean the Ceres would contain enough mass of oxygen to give Mars a workable atmosphere, if it were all water. but if it were a few percent water, then it's a lot closer a question.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"