An ancient ocean on Ceres?
Two studies released today by the Dawn science team suggest that the spacecraft has found evidence that an ancient ocean once existed on Ceres.
In one study, the Dawn team found Ceres’ crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials that were subjected to past and possibly recent geologic activity, and 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.
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Two studies released today by the Dawn science team suggest that the spacecraft has found evidence that an ancient ocean once existed on Ceres.
In one study, the Dawn team found Ceres’ crust is a mixture of ice, salts and hydrated materials that were subjected to past and possibly recent geologic activity, and 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.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Interesting that the Occator crater is located in the deepest blue area of the gravitational map, indicating a high proportion of water under the surface, leading to less dense mass, and therefore lower gravitational field?
Ceres is now believed to be an ancient ocean bottom. Like an icy Jovian moon whose ice shell and underlying liquid ocean has evaporated, from bombardment and because Ceres is straddling the water ice line.
I wonder if they have enough hydrazine left to soft land Dawn on Ceres. The gravity might be too high at 2.7% that of Earth’s.
One of the most interesting parts of the report is the mention of water clathrates.
What many will think of first is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate
That water clathrates can be stronger than water ice by 100-1000 to 1 is something I did not know. More immediately one should ask what is the gas bound in the clathrate. While methane comes to mind it is *far* from the only possibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_compound
However, whatever trapped gas is available in a water caged clathrate may be several very good things for us. Fuel to combine with water’s Oxygen: Raw materials for industrial processes: Atmosphere for Ceres! Yes, an atmosphere, from the crust of Ceres could be maintained for a very long time by continual drilling and release of gas. Initially this will just be for habitats, but these will grow. Eventually this can encompass the entire dwarf planet. Yes, even with only 2.7% of Earth’s gravitational pull.
The gas is unlikely to be Oxygen because that is so reactive, but it might well be CO2. If it is ammonia, then that can be broken down into hydrogen for fuel and free Nitrogen for export and for thickening the atmosphere of an Oxygen/Nitrogen mixture atmosphere. A nice mix of 40% Oxygen and 60% Nitrogen could give us atmosphere not approached since the Carboniferous Era, when all that Oxygen was being released into Earth’s atmosphere. Then Ceres could become famous as the only place where humans regularly fly under their own power with 2.7% of Earth’s gravity!
Is Heaven out there between Mars and Jupiter??
Also read my conspiracy theories about Antarctica
https://aliens-explorer.blogspot.com/2019/11/conspiracy-theories-about-antarctica.html?m=1