{"id":111373,"date":"2024-10-07T09:54:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T02:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=111373"},"modified":"2024-10-07T09:54:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T02:54:52","slug":"nearby-dwarf-planet-could-have-a-crust-thats-90-water-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=111373","title":{"rendered":"Nearby Dwarf Planet Could Have a Crust That&#8217;s 90% Water : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A dwarf planet thought to have some ice mixed in with its dirty surface may have a lot more cool than we ever expected.<\/p>\n<p>Ceres \u2013 the largest body in the <a href=\"https:\/\/sciencealert.com\/asteroid\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" data-linkid=\"73095\" data-postid=\"139593\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\">asteroid<\/a> belt between <a href=\"https:\/\/sciencealert.com\/mars\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" data-linkid=\"73083\" data-postid=\"139593\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Mars<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/sciencealert.com\/the-weirdest-facts-about-jupiter\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" data-linkid=\"73113\" data-postid=\"139593\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Jupiter<\/a> \u2013 could have a crust consisting of more than 90 percent water ice. If this is the case, the heavily cratered and scarred object could have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/mysterious-bright-spots-on-dwarf-planet-ceres-point-to-secret-underground-ocean\">lot to teach us about ocean worlds<\/a>, and what they can look like when they freeze over completely.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We think that there&#8217;s lots of water-ice near Ceres&#8217;s surface, and that it gets gradually less icy as you go deeper and deeper,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaps.purdue.edu\/news\/articles\/2024\/0925_sori_nature.html\">says planetary geophysicist Mike Sori<\/a> of Purdue University in the US.<\/p>\n<p>First discovered in 1801, Ceres is sometimes referred to as an asteroid because of where it hangs out in the Solar System; but it&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/eos.org\/articles\/meet-hygiea-the-smallest-dwarf-planet-in-our-solar-system\">big and spherical enough<\/a> to be classified as a dwarf planet, just under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iau.org\/public\/themes\/pluto\/\">half the size of Pluto<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also quite an interesting oddball. It&#8217;s the only dwarf planet closer to the Sun than Neptune, and speckled with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bright_spots_on_Ceres\">bright spots<\/a> that may be evidence of ice volcanoes on its surface.<\/p>\n<p>So it&#8217;s likely that there&#8217;s least some water there, but how much? Previous estimates, based on cratering of the surface, placed the quantity at no more than 30 percent.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s because, if the surface was water ice, scientists thought that it would gradually deform over time, and become smoother and shallower. When NASA&#8217;s Dawn spacecraft <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/the-dawn-probe-has-successfully-entered-ceres-orbit\">arrived at Ceres in 2015<\/a>, it found well-defined craters that were inconsistent with what researchers had expected to see if Ceres was icy, so they made their estimates accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People used to think that if Ceres was very icy, the craters would deform quickly over time, like glaciers flowing on Earth, or like gooey flowing honey. However, we&#8217;ve shown through our simulations that ice can be much stronger in conditions on Ceres than previously predicted if you mix in just a little bit of solid rock,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaps.purdue.edu\/news\/articles\/2024\/0925_sori_nature.html\">says<\/a> Sori.<\/p>\n<p>Using data from the Dawn mission and computer simulations of an icy world, a team led by planetary scientist Ian Pamerleau of Purdue University sought to investigate whether this assumption was correct.<\/p>\n<p>And they found that it would only take a little bit of dirt mixed into the ice to give it enough structural integrity to maintain crisp craters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even solids will flow over long timescales, and ice flows more readily than rock. Craters have deep bowls which produce high stresses that then relax to a lower stress state, resulting in a shallower bowl via solid state flow,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaps.purdue.edu\/news\/articles\/2024\/0925_sori_nature.html\">Pamerleau explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our computer simulations account for a new way that ice can flow with only a little bit of non-ice impurities mixed in, which would allow for a very ice-rich crust to barely flow even over billions of years. Therefore, we could get an ice-rich Ceres that still matches the observed lack of crater relaxation. We tested different crustal structures in these simulations and found that a gradational crust with a high ice content near the surface that grades down to lower ice with depth was the best way to limit relaxation of Cerean craters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As much as over 90 percent of the dwarf planet&#8217;s crust could be water ice, giving some insight, the researchers believe, into ice-covered ocean worlds. There are quite a few of these in the Solar System, including Jovian moons <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/europa-s-interior-may-be-hot-enough-for-volcanoes-raising-the-chances-of-life\">Europa<\/a> and possibly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/nasa-just-found-water-vapor-on-jupiter-s-ocean-moon-ganymede\">Ganymede<\/a>, Kronian moons <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/saturns-ocean-moon-enceladus-has-all-the-building-blocks-for-life-research-shows\">Enceladus<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/saturns-death-star-moon-is-harboring-a-secret-sloshing-ocean\">Mimas<\/a>, and likely Uranian moons <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/strange-signal-from-decades-ago-hints-at-hidden-oceans-orbiting-uranus\">Miranda and Ariel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These moons have a thick shell of ice, under which an ocean of liquid water is thought to be maintained by the heat generated by the gravitational interaction between moon and planet.<\/p>\n<p>Ceres doesn&#8217;t orbit a planet, which means there&#8217;s no tidal activity to keep its insides warm. Any ocean that once sloshed there, the researchers say, would be completely frozen over.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our interpretation of all this is that Ceres used to be an &#8216;ocean world&#8217; like Europa, but with a dirty, muddy ocean,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaps.purdue.edu\/news\/articles\/2024\/0925_sori_nature.html\">Sori says<\/a>. &#8220;As that muddy ocean froze over time, it created an icy crust with a little bit of rocky material trapped in it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If this is the case, it means ocean worlds could look a lot different from what we might expect. In addition, NASA has sent a spacecraft to Ceres before. It could do so again \u2013 and the dwarf planet&#8217;s possible frozen ocean world status makes it a very intriguing research target.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To me the exciting part of all this, if we&#8217;re right, is that we have a frozen ocean world pretty close to Earth. Ceres may be a valuable point of comparison for the ocean-hosting icy moons of the outer Solar System, like Jupiter&#8217;s moon Europa and <a href=\"https:\/\/sciencealert.com\/what-is-saturn\" class=\"lar_link lar_link_outgoing\" data-linkid=\"102270\" data-postid=\"139593\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_self\">Saturn<\/a>&#8216;s moon Enceladus,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaps.purdue.edu\/news\/articles\/2024\/0925_sori_nature.html\">Sori says<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ceres, we think, is therefore the most accessible icy world in the Universe. That makes it a great target for future spacecraft missions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The research has been published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41550-024-02350-4\"><i>Nature Astronomy<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/nearby-dwarf-planet-could-have-a-crust-thats-90-water\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A dwarf planet thought to have some ice mixed in with its dirty surface may have a lot more cool than we ever expected. Ceres \u2013 the largest body in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=111373\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8628],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}