- The dwarf planet Ceres, which lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is not a barren space rock as earlier believed. New data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have shown that it is a water-rich world.
- After analyzing data collected near the end of the mission, scientists determined that beneath the surface of Ceres, there could be a deep reservoir of brine, or salt-enriched water which is about 40 km deep and hundreds of miles wide.
- Ceres makes up almost a third of the asteroid belt’s total mass, but it is still far smaller than Earth’s Moon. The Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in 2015.
- Long before Dawn arrived at Ceres, scientists had noticed diffuse bright regions with telescopes, but their nature was unknown.