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- Title
The Mystery of Ceres' Activity.
- Authors
Küppers, Michael
- Abstract
In recent years, the dwarf planet Ceres has been found to release water vapor. Detailed investigation of the surface and subsurface by NASA's Dawn mission reveal localized patches of surface ice and an ice abundance of around 10% in the shallow subsurface, within a meter below the surface. Landis et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JE005780) quantify the expected sublimation from the surface and subsurface ice reservoirs at Ceres, and the expected evaporation rates are factors of several lower than the observed ones. Although consideration of additional processes may possibly reduce the discrepancy, the origin of Ceres' exosphere is not yet clear. Plain Language Summary: The dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, is known to contain large amounts of water ice, and water vapor was detected around it. Possible sources of the water are surface exposure of ice through impacts and subsequent sublimation when heated by sunlight, or volcanic activity. It turns out that with either process it is difficult to create sufficient water vapor to explain the observations. This means that the geological processes on Ceres are not fully understood. Key Points: Ceres is an active body, releasing a few kilograms of water vapor per secondLikely sources of water vapor are near‐surface sublimation of water ice and cryovolcanismIt is not yet fully understood by which mechanism the observed amount of water vapor is created from the known ice reservoirs
- Subjects
CERES (Dwarf planet); ICE; WATER vapor; DAWN (Space probe); PLANETARY surfaces; PLANETARY water; EXOSPHERE; VOLCANISM
- Publication
Journal of Geophysical Research. Planets, 2019, Vol 124, Issue 2, p205
- ISSN
2169-9097
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2018JE005910