May This Dwarf Planet in Our Photo voltaic System Have Hosted Life?

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In the hundreds of thousands of miles between Mars and Jupiter spins a dwarf planet, now seemingly as chilly as the numerous different asteroids round it. But it doubtless wasn’t at all times thus. New analysis digs into the historical past of the darkish micro-planet and finds that it’d as soon as have had a scorching core. And that, posit scientists, may have heated the carbon-heavy, rocky world sufficient to maintain a liquid water ocean—and with it, microscopic lifeforms.

Observations collected from NASA’s Dawn mission counsel that the asteroid was as soon as heated from inside by radioactive decay. This may have infused its oceans with heat, in addition to dissolved gases—together with methane and carbon dioxide—which may have fed undersea organisms. The outcome may need regarded much like hydrothermal vents on Earth, creating “a buffet for microbes—a feast of chemical energy,” mentioned lead writer of the brand new examine, Sam Courville, a researcher at Arizona State University, in a statement. The findings had been published just lately in Science Advances.

“Ceres’ ocean has likely become a cold, concentrated brine” missing the power to maintain life alive, the examine authors observe. Its warmest period was doubtless some 4 billion to 2.5 billion years in the past. Just when life appears to have been rising on Earth. Now, Ceres is roofed by a shell of ice some 30 miles thick. But as new observations roll in, they may warmth up the seek for the historical past of life in our photo voltaic system.

Lead picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

• Katherine Harmon Courage

  Posted on August 25, 2025

  Katherine Harmon Courage is the manager editor at Nautilus.