Ceres may be a Mini-Planet |
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Written by spacetravel.org
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 23:17 |
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Observations of 1 Ceres, the largest known asteroid and the first asteroid to be discovered, made by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope, show that it may be a mini-planet, with large amounts of pure water ice underneath its surface.
Lucy A. McFadden of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a member of the team that made the observations, believes that Ceres started out developing as a planet, but the effects of Jupiters gravity prevented it from accreting enough material to become a fully developed planet.
Ceres shares characteristics of Earth-like planets. It is almost round, like the Earth. Computer models show that a nearly round object has a differentiated interior, with denser material at the core and lighter minerals near the surface. All terrestrial planets have differentiated interiors, but asteroids much smaller than Ceres do not.
Astronomer believe that there may be water ice underneath Ceres crust because the surface shows spectral evidence of water-bearing minerals, and because the density of Ceres is less than that of the Earths crust. Ceres water would be in the form of ice and located in the mantle, which wraps around the solid core.
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