NASA Discovers Evidence Suggesting Dwarf Planet Ceres Might Have Hosted Living organisms in the Past
The dwarf planet Ceres, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may have been a hospitable world in the distant past, according to a new study published in Science Advances. The research, led by Francesco Zambon of the University of Naples Federico II, provides the final piece in the habitability puzzle for Ceres.
The study reveals that between about 500 million and 2 billion years after Ceres formed, its core likely reached up to 800 Kelvin (around 527°C). This internal heat, generated by radioactive isotopes, is believed to have powered the subsurface ocean on Ceres, keeping it warm enough for known terrestrial life. However, as these radioactive isotopes decayed, the ocean turned into a cold and salty slush, making it no longer habitable.
NASA's Dawn mission, which orbited Ceres from 2015 to 2018, found evidence of an ancient briny reservoir under a shell of ice. This core could have generated chemical energy for hundreds of millions of years. During metamorphism, between approximately 0.5 and 2 billion years after Ceres' formation, conditions were most habitable. The deep pore fluids on Ceres contained high concentrations of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, ideal for methanogenesis.
If Ceres was indeed habitable in the past, it suggests that tens of asteroids and moons may also have been habitable. The new study suggests that Ceres might have had an ocean warmed from within by a radioactive core, similar to the conditions found in hydrothermal vents on Earth. These vents, known for their extreme environments, can provide chemical energy for hypothetical microbes.
Ceres has a frigid, gray surface with temperatures ranging from -93°C to -33°C. Despite its current barren state, there are no signs of present-day hydrothermal activity, the interior may have supported a deep, dark ocean with the basic ingredients needed for life.
The National Academies' 2022 decadal survey recommended a mission to collect samples from Ceres under the theme "Origins, Worlds, and Life." A sample return mission to collect surface salts from Ceres could reveal isotopic fingerprints left by deep interior fluids, providing further insights into Ceres' past habitability.
The new research not only sheds light on Ceres' past but also extends the habitability conversation to many icy bodies in the solar system that share similar size and composition with Ceres. The study serves as a reminder of the vast, unexplored potential of our solar system and the ongoing quest to understand its origins and the possibility of life beyond Earth.
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