Dwarf planet Ceres is an ‘ocean world’ with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

The dwarf planet Ceres – long believed to be a barren space rock – is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday.

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, massive enough to be shaped by its gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface.

Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analyzed images relayed from the orbiter, captured about 35km (22 miles) from the asteroid.

They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and determined that there is an “extensive reservoir” of brine beneath its surface.

Read more at The Guardian