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Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#11

Post by baggy_trough »

api wrote: post #6
gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

The question is whether there is a source of energy for that subsurface ocean. If it's geologically dead the entire thing could be uniformly quite cold. Unlike some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn it's not headed by gravitational tidal effects.

If that's the case why would it be an ocean at all, rather than a block of ice?

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#12

Post by shakna »

nerfhammer wrote: post #5

man, so many planets have subsurface oceans, there must be a lot of species of eyeless space whales across the universe

Earth might have a subsurface ocean as well [1], though I haven't found any follow up since 2014 on that one.

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1253358

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#13

Post by smithza »

gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

What of the lack of atmosphere and lack of active mantle/core? Solar energy has little chance of staying within the system.

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#16

Post by toshk »

gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

I always wondered why we are overly focused on the conditions that created life on earth. Arguably it makes sense to see similar conditions lead to life. But do we really know enough to assume that's only way?

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#19

Post by freehunter »

toshk wrote: post #16
gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

I always wondered why we are overly focused on the conditions that created life on earth. Arguably it makes sense to see similar conditions lead to life. But do we really know enough to assume that's only way?

Because it’s hard to detect life on other planets. It’s easier if we know what we’re looking for. We know where we came from, so it’s easier to detect.

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#20

Post by elliekelly »

abledon wrote: post #7

spaceX when? 2048?

Somewhat related I saw it’s going to take NASA’s new Perseverance rover about 7 months to get to Mars and it’s traveling at something like 25,000 MPH. Since NASA had to take the planetary orbits and launch timing, etc. into account I’m assuming that’s the fastest ideal velocity for the rover but not necessarily the fastest possible.

So I guess my question is, given that Ceres is so much further away than Mars, what’s the constraining factor for faster space travel? Safety? Fuel? Hardware? Technology? If Elon was going to spend every penny he has to get to Ceres as fast as possible, how would his billions best be spent?

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