Dwarf Planet Ceres Near Mars Could Help in Search for Alien Life

Astronomers have been searching for signs of extraterrestrials for years. A new study suggests that the dwarf planet near Mars, Ceres, may be able to help due to the abundance of organic matter in it.

Dwarf Plane Ceres in Search for Alien Life

Ceres lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists have discovered that the planet contains a variety of complex organics.

Scientists first identified these chemical compounds in 2017 using the Dawn spacecraft, but a recent study detailed in the Geological Society of America journal suggests that they may be more common than previously believed.

Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the study's primary author, noted that the organics were initially found next to a significant impact crater, which inspired the team to investigate how impacts affect these organics.

Per Daly, they are discovering that organics might be more common than initially thought, and they also appear to resist impacts from Ceres-like circumstances. The planet may have the essential building blocks to support extraterrestrial life because of its organic matter and indications that it contains a significant amount of water ice. The presence of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, which are all necessary for maintaining life, as well as the discovery of organic matter on a planet and how pervasive it is, all indicate the existence of life.

Daly continued that a lack of study specifically focused on the type of organics detected on Ceres using the same analytical method the Dawn spacecraft used to see them. Researchers have undertaken impact and stress studies on many types of organics.

According to scientists, doing so would enable them to compare the two sets of information gleaned from the planet's organics.

Juan Rizos, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland who also collaborated on the project, stated that by combining the strengths of two separate datasets acquired over Ceres, we could map possible organic-rich locations in greater detail.

Daly said they observed a strong association between organics and older impact units and with other minerals like carbonates, which also point to the presence of water. It was reportedly solid proof that the organics developed on Ceres and most likely in the fact of water, even though the genesis of the organics is still poorly understood.

Ceres might contain a sizable internal reserve of organics. So, in his opinion, it raises the chances of Ceres' astrobiological potential.

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Planet Nine Is Not A Planet But an Alternative Form Of Gravity

Planet Nine, believed to be lying somewhere in the solar system's outer reaches, may not be a planet. Instead, what was initially considered a large object could be evidence that gravity isn't as substantial as we always believed. Planet Nine may be another type of gravity disguising itself as a planet.

The Planet Nine hypothesis, first proposed in 2016, claims that the odd orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune, which seem to be being driven away from the sun, can be explained by the existence of an undiscovered ninth planet up to 10 times as massive as Earth. Astronomers have been looking for Planet Nine ever since. But after searching nearly half of the night sky, they have come up empty-handed.

The most recent research indicates that the outer solar system lacks gravitational anomalies. Instead, the team shows that the inconsistencies are completely resolved when the modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) is applied.