In the depths of the dwarf planet Ceres, Dawn mission team suspected the existence of small lakes of liquid salt water. Dedicated to the study published in Nature and Nature Geoscience journal.
In the first publication of the researchers analyzed data collected in the visible and infrared spectrograph Dawn automatic station. They indicate the presence of a celestial body on the surface of sodium carbonate, mixed with silicates. Scientists suggest that the surface of the dwarf planet they came from its interior following a collision with an asteroid.
In the second publication of scientists to clarify the origin and composition of the salty liquid that filled the craters after the fall of the asteroid, and then hardened. Geophysicists believe that the majority of craters with spots on Ceres are too deep to consist entirely of ice. This allowed the researchers to estimate the composition of the subsurface layer of a heavenly body: 30-40 percent of it is composed of water ice, and by 60-70 percent – of silicate rocks with inclusions of hydrated salts and clathrates
The lowlands on Ceres marked in blue
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA
at present, scientists have discovered more than 130 at Ceres light (in comparison with the environment) spots, the most striking of which is located in the crater Okkator. Previous studies have shown that most likely they are filled with hydrated magnesium sulfate.
00:21 April 5, 2016
Dawn station was launched on 27 September 2007, by carrier rocket Delta 2 from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in the US, and in orbit around Ceres was March 6, 2015. Cost of the project for the study of the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, is about 500 million dollars.
Ceres, discovered in 1801 by Italian Giuseppe Piazzi and is named after the Roman goddess of fertility. The diameter of the space object is 950 kilometers, making it the largest celestial body in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
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