Solar system reappears water planet? The planet showed bright spots and the United States followed it for three years.

Humans began to explore alien life in the early 1970s. First, American astronauts landed on the moon, collected lunar soil samples and brought them back to Earth for research. We took the lead in exploring the moon because it is the closest planet to the earth. After basically determining that there is no life on the moon, scientists will transfer their research objects to Mars, Europa, Titan and other celestial bodies. Do you find that there are no dwarf planets in these celestial bodies?

The main research content of these papers is the shooting and detection of Ceres by Dawn detector. Through research and analysis, it is found that there may be a huge marine world under Ceres. On earth, life is born from the ocean, and where there is an ocean, there will be life. So is there life on Ceres?

How was Ceres discovered?

Before understanding these problems, let's first understand how Ceres was discovered. 1766, a German math teacher named Jane Doe Tis discovered a special series. Ordinary people can't find any regularity in this series, but Deutis found that every item in the series is related to the distance between the six planets and the sun that had been discovered at that time. Dionysus told this discovery to his friend Bode, who is an astronomer.

Some of them found that there was another number representing Mars and Jupiter in this series, so astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts thought that this number might be an undiscovered planet, so everyone began to look for this planet through telescopes with great interest. Italian priest Giuseppe Piazi first observed the planet. One night at 180 1, he observed a bright spot in the position corresponding to that number in the series.

However, Piazi became ill later. After he recovered, he wanted to continue to observe the bright spot and found that the bright spot had disappeared. It is said that after Piazi discovered the mysterious bright spot, the famous mathematicians Gauss and Euler tried to prove the existence of the bright spot through mathematical methods. Finally, on the last night of 180 1, German astronomer Olbers observed a bright spot during the time period predicted by Gauss. After Olbers's long-term observation, the bright spot was indeed a planet, and Ceres was finally confirmed!

What are the important discoveries of Dawn on Ceres?

Scientists' interest in Ceres should have started at the end of 2003. With the help of Hubble Space Telescope, they photographed the appearance of Ceres for the first time. Through the analysis of the pictures, they found that the overall shape of Ceres is close to a sphere, and the surface has different reflectivity after being irradiated by light, which makes scientists firmly believe that Ceres is a planet with complex terrain. Four years later, NASA launched Dawn, the first probe to detect the asteroid belt in human history.

Dawn was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 27th, 2007. Its mission is to detect Vesta and Ceres in the asteroid belt, which were defined as dwarf planets by the International Astronomical Union in 2006. After eight years' flight, Dawn officially entered the orbit of Ceres on March 20 15, and began its exploration journey.

What are the mysterious highlights on Ceres?

When scientists repeatedly analyzed the data sent back by Dawn, they found that the brightness of the bright spots in the Okado crater area changed, which led to many conjectures. Some scientists believe that there is ice on the surface of Okato crater, and the sunlight shines on the ice and reflects into the lens of dawn. Some scientists also believe that a large amount of salt substances have accumulated in the bright spot area, which forms crystals without water and refracts bright light under the irradiation of sunlight.

Scientists at NASA believe that there may be a huge underground brine reservoir where Ceres has bright spots. According to their guess, the underground dew reservoir was not originally connected with the ground, but later the formation of Okada crater destroyed the upper brine layer, causing some brine to flow to the surface. Ceres, on the other hand, is a planet without an atmosphere, and the brine exposed on the earth's surface will soon precipitate salt.

In order to further verify that the bright spot on the surface of Ceres is salt water deposits, a team of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reanalyzed the detection data of Dawn in 20 16 to analyze the internal structure of Ceres according to the data. Finally, the research team concluded that Ceres has a low-density crust, which indicates that the main component in the crust is not rock, but ice, which should be a mixture of ice, salt and other substances.

Geologists say that this crustal structure is very similar to the marine characteristics of the early earth, which means that the evolution of Ceres at this stage indicates that the underground ocean is forming, or just formed. In short, from the bright spots found on the surface of Ceres, scientists speculate that there may be a huge underground ocean, which makes Ceres another planet that may have an underground ocean after Europa and Titan.

Could Ceres be a livable planet?

Before discussing this issue, we need to know what conditions a planet needs to have to become a livable planet. Take the earth as an example, the conditions for becoming a livable planet are always divided into two aspects, one is internal conditions and the other is external conditions. First of all, from the internal conditions, the radius of Ceres is about 425 kilometers, while the radius of the earth is 6378 kilometers, a difference of more than ten times. Converted into volume and mass, it can be seen that Ceres is hundreds of times smaller than the earth.

Secondly, the temperature of Ceres is only -73 degrees Celsius during the day, and the temperature at night is lower than this, because it lacks the protection of the atmosphere. The atmosphere is extremely important for the survival of living things, and it is a key factor to create a livable environment to a great extent. The suitable temperature is inseparable from the atmosphere, and the existence of liquid water is also inseparable from the atmosphere. It can be seen that the surface environment of Ceres is very bad, and I am afraid that only water bears can survive on it.

Then let's talk about the external environment of Ceres. This planet is located in the asteroid belt, which is full of various small celestial bodies, which determines that the external environment of Ceres is full of unstable factors. Maybe one day a Xiaotian will suddenly bump into Ceres. Although this collision will not disintegrate Ceres, it is enough to leave a huge impact crater on its surface.

Moreover, Ceres itself is influenced by the gravity of Mars, Jupiter and the sun. As long as the gravity of one side fluctuates, the trajectory of Ceres is likely to change, which may lead to another collision event. To sum up, although there may be a liquid ocean under Ceres, it is still not a livable planet. In the future, mankind can develop it into an energy planet, but it cannot be used as a base for human interstellar migration.

What does the discovery on Ceres tell us?

Studies have shown that Ceres may be a protoplanet. The so-called protoplanet refers to the planet in the early embryonic stage of the solar system. Now all the planets have evolved from protoplanets, but not all protoplanets can eventually evolve into planets. Most protoplanets have lost the opportunity to "develop" because of the lack of opportunities to integrate with other celestial bodies. Ceres is such a celestial body.

Therefore, some scientists believe that if we can increase the detection of Ceres, we may find the early evolution of the solar system on it, and at the same time we may uncover the early process of planetary evolution, which is also to understand the history of the earth.