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A Revealing Last Glance at Ceres Before Its Demise, the Dawn Spacecraft Performed a Series of Low Passes Over the Bright Spots of Dwarf Planet Ceres

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A Revealing Last Glance at Ceres Before Its Demise, the Dawn Spacecraft Performed a Series of Low Passes Over the Bright Spots of Dwarf Planet Ceres editorial A revealing last glance at Ceres Before its demise, the Dawn spacecraft performed a series of low passes over the bright spots of dwarf planet Ceres. These high-resolution data highlight the nature of Ceres as an active ocean world with unique characteristics. he launch window for spacecraft — faculae — that stand out strikingly against The discovery of a particular salt, towards Mars, which repeats at a the dark greyness of the surface. Made up hydrohalite, and its higher concentration at Tcadence of 26 months, has become of a mixture of salty brines, the faculae the centre of the biggest facula, is proof that one of the most reliable appointments in offered a different vision of Ceres as an the briny liquid material is still coming up space exploration. Since 1988, only two active world for most of its history, a vision from the interior, as hydrohalite dehydrates (1994 and 2009) have passed without a reinforced by the presence of cryovolcanoes in less than 100 years if left undisturbed. This spacecraft launch, and with eight currently of different ages scattered across the surface. means that the impact that created Occator operational missions, Mars is by far the Given that Occator formed only about 22 had both short- and long-term consequences, most crowded body in the Solar System. million years ago, the presence of such mobilizing deeper-seated brines that are Remarkably, the 2020 launch window, bright spots indicates very recent activity. still active today. Thanks to the close pass of which saw three spacecraft leaving for The idea of Ceres as a relict ocean world Dawn’s XM2, the story of the crater from its the red planet, marked the arrival of two started to take shape. And an ocean world formation until today can be reconstructed newcomers: China, an established Moon in the asteroid belt was not expected. Ocean with precision, showing repeated events explorer, sent Tianwen-1, an ambitious worlds, with the obvious exception of Earth, associated with cryovolcanism. This picture combination of orbiter, lander and rover, are mostly associated with the outer Solar of a porous and possibly brine-filled interior and the United Arab Emirates launched System. Ceres, in addition, does not have a is confirmed by high-resolution gravity data. the Hope orbiter, their first planetary favourable configuration to host an ocean: Ceres can then be added to the rather short mission ever. Slowly but surely, the Martian there is no possibility of tidal heating like list of bodies for which we know the interior exploration is opening up beyond the usual the moons of the giant planets, it is too far structure at high resolution, and the only suspects, though we are still far from a from the Sun, and it is rather small to have ocean world to date (bar Earth). ‘democratization’ of Martian space. sufficient radioactive materials to keep an Interestingly enough, the ensemble of We celebrated the Martian season last ocean liquid for the whole of Ceres’s history. these data indicates that Ceres’s internal month by publishing two Mission Controls Dawn’s XM2 phase was planned to ocean does not seem to be like the others we related to these new actors, and for more answer a series of open questions about are used to. It is much more full of rocks and about NASA’s Perseverance rover, Emily Ceres’s interior and activity that needed non-icy materials than, say, the liquid bodies Lakdawalla has written on the science that specifically high-resolution data, and within Europa or Enceladus. This result can be done at the landing sites of the NASA to remove ambiguities connected to the reveals the astonishing diversity of possible and ESA rovers (the latter, meanwhile, has formation of the faculae. The first results ocean worlds in our Solar System, and surely been delayed to the next launch window, in from Dawn’s XM2 are presented here in the missions coming in the next decade 2022). This issue of Nature Astronomy moves a series of seven papers spanning three (and beyond) that target ocean worlds will a bit farther from the Sun to the only dwarf journals: Nature Astronomy, Nature provide many further surprises. planet in the inner Solar System: Ceres. Geoscience and Nature Communications. In When we mention an ocean we NASA’s Dawn mission arrived at Ceres this way, each paper is published in its most can’t avoid thinking about its potential in 2015 and, while still in orbit, stopped suitable venue, and at the same time it is habitability. Each ocean world has operating in October 2018 due to lack of clearly shown as part of a whole through a astrobiological potential, but it is not yet fuel. In a similar fashion to Cassini, Dawn dedicated webpage. Following in the steps clear whether the potential can be translated planned its own ‘Grand Finale’ during the of last year’s publication of the first results into possibility. For Ceres, we will probably second extended mission (XM2) phase, from the OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid need a follow-up mission. And the search with a series of low-passing orbits — the Bennu, the Dawn XM2 series reaffirms for life is what ultimately ties icy world Ceres closest one a mere 35 km above the the commitment of the Nature Research with our neighbour Mars. Mars has always surface — that could study Ceres at group to highlighting important events in been a candidate in the search for past (and unprecedented resolution. astronomy and planetary science through extant) life, and the new and upcoming When it came to choosing the location the publication of a full package of related Martian missions are becoming increasingly that would most benefit from such a unique scientific papers. astrobiologically oriented. At both Mars and perspective, it could not have been anything And the results from Dawn are ocean worlds like Ceres, we are preparing, other than the Occator crater. Occator indeed well worth highlighting. As Julie with very concrete steps, to tackle one of is the location that turned Ceres from a Castillo-Rogez and Marc Rayman show in humanity’s biggest questions. ❐ relatively placid (albeit large and ice-rich) their summary, this series of papers marks asteroid into an overnight sensation with the yet another shift in our vision of Ceres: Published online: 10 August 2020 unexpected discovery of large bright spots from a relict ocean world to an active one. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-020-1191-3 NATURE ASTRONOMY | VOL 4 | AUGUST 2020 | 723 | www.nature.com/natureastronomy 723.
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