Archive for October 6, 2016

Could water ice deposits be lurking in Ceres’ polar craters?

Using data collected by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, an international team of astronomers has created a Map of the dwarf planet Ceres’ northern hemisphere detailing regions that exist in permanent shadow. According to the study, these dark zones house conditions favorable to the existence of water ice.

ceres-cold-traps-1The relatively low mass of Ceres compared to the fully fledged planets that make up our solar system prevents it from maintaining any significant atmosphere when compared to the potent protective shield hosted by Earth, or even the tenuous shell that clings to the Mars. However, Ceres’ gravity is strong enough to prevent water particles from floating off into space. Read more