New research suggests that the dwarf planet Ceres may have once harbored a radioactive core, providing the energy needed to potentially kickstart life in its hidden ocean. The findings, based on data from NASA's Dawn probe, challenge previous beliefs that Ceres lacked the necessary energy source for life.
New research suggests that the dwarf planet Ceres , the closest dwarf planet to Earth, may have once had a radioactive core , capable of providing the energy needed to kickstart life on this tiny world. Ceres , with a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers), is not large enough to be considered a planet.
But its size makes it a dwarf planet, one of several in our cosmic neighborhood, with others waiting to be properly recognized by the International Astronomical Union, and many more discoveries expected in the coming decades. However, Ceres is the only dwarf planet located within the inner solar system. The rest, including Haumea, Makemake and Eris, are located far beyond the orbit of Neptune. The hunt for life on Ceres intensified thanks to NASA's Dawn probe, which visited the object between 2014 and 2018. One of the most intriguing discoveries from the Dawn mission is that the giant space rock, Ceres, displays traces of water and salty minerals on its icy surface, suggesting a large reservoir of brine is trapped miles below. Other studies have hinted that this underground ocean could also contain organic carbon, a key component of all life on Earth. However, until now, scientists thought that life was unlikely to have emerged on Ceres because the dwarf planet has no energy source capable of kickstarting life.A new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy challenges this notion. The study team created computer models based on data collected by the Dawn mission to simulate how the rocky body's core changed over time. This revealed that the dwarf planet's innards probably used to emit large amounts of energy in the form of heat, raising hopes that tiny alien microbes could have emerged within Ceres' hidden ocean. The researchers believe that Ceres' core once emitted significant amounts of heat from the gradual decay of radioactive isotopes. The team believes that this heating lasted between 0.5 and 2 billion years after the giant rock was created, which was likely shortly after the rest of the solar system, around 4.6 billion years ago. At its hottest, the core likely reached around 530 degrees Fahrenheit (280 degrees Celsius), the researchers wrote. This is not the first time that scientists have proposed that Ceres had a radioactive core. However, this is the best evidence yet that it generated enough heat to potentially support life. Researchers believe that the heat given off by Ceres' past radioactive core could have created hydrothermal vent systems capable of kickstarting life in the dwarf planet's hidden ocean.In addition to heating the dwarf planet's subsurface ocean to a habitable temperature, the radiation could have also caused jets of hot, mineral-rich water to shoot up through the ocean floor, similar to the hydrothermal vent systems on Earth that support diverse microbial communities in the crushing dark depths of our oceans. On Earth, when hot water from deep underground mixes with the ocean, the result is often a buffet for microbes - a feast of chemical energy, said Professor Courville. However, since Ceres' radioactive core went dead around 2.5 billion years ago, any alien microbes would have likely died out from the cold, meaning there is practically zero chance that the dwarf planet supports life today, the researchers said.
Ceres Dwarf Planet Life Radioactive Core NASA Dawn Probe Hydrothermal Vents
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