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Ceres: An ocean world in the asteroid belt


Liquid water, once thought unique to Earth, may be common on icy worlds throughout the solar system.

Researchers used similar reasoning, applying it to data from NASA’s New Horizons mission, to also argue that Pluto hides a global liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust. The Dawn mission was launched in 2007 with an unconventional ion engine that let it first orbit Vesta, the asteroid belt’s second largest object, for 14 months before venturing on to Ceres in 2012. That finding is “one of the most profound discoveries in planetary science in the space age,” S. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute and head of NASA’s New Horizons mission, tells Astronomy.

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