Surface water-ice deposits in the northern shadowed regions of Ceres

Platz, Thomas; Nathues, A.; Schörghofer, N.; Preusker, Frank; Mazarico, E.; Schröder, Stefan; Byrne, Shane; Kneissl, T.; Schmedemann, N.; Combe, Jean-Philippe; Schäfer, Michael; Thangjam, G.; Hoffmann, M.; Gutiérrez-Marques, P.; Landis, M. E.; Dietrich, W.; Ripken, J.; Matz, Klaus-Dieter; Russell, C. T.

doi:10.1038/s41550-016-0007

Cited by 81 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Fluidized ejecta as observed at other fresh craters on Ceres (Krohn et al, 2016;Platz et al, in press) are not observed. The frequently found hummocky texture in medial to distal reaches is primarily caused by the pre-existing cratered terrain, i.e., the ejecta blanket mantles the terrain, and therefore, traces pre-existing terrain roughness.…”

Section: Ejecta Materialsmentioning

confidence: 87%

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Nathues

Platz

Thangjam

et al. 2019

Icarus

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Section: Ejecta Materialsmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…The pronounced ejecta asymmetry is the result of the high rotation rate of Ceres (9.07h; for ejecta simulations see Platz et al (2016) and Schmedemann et al (2017)). …”

Section: Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nathues

Platz

Thangjam

et al. 2019

Icarus

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“…Ice patches exposed on the sunlit surface (Combe et al 2016) are few and small, and produce little vapor (Landis et al 2017). Ice deposits in perennially shadowed craters are also small and few in number (Ermakov et al 2017;Platz et al 2017), and moreover the Herschel observations suggest that the vapor did not originate from the polar regions (Küppers 2017). The episodic appearance of a cerean exosphere is correlated with solar energetic particle (SEP) events , but the specific source of water remains an open question.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The axis tilt of Ceres oscillates between 2°and 20°with a period of 24.5kyr (Bills & Scott 2017;Ermakov et al 2017), so it becomes necessary to distinguish between permanent and perennial shadows. Several of the perennially shadowed regions (PSRs) on Ceres contain bright deposits (Platz et al 2017;Ermakov et al 2017). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Putative Cerean Exosphere

Schörghofer

Byrne

Landis

et al. 2017

ApJ

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The ice-rich crust of dwarf planet 1 Ceres is the source of a tenuous water exosphere, and the behavior of this putative exosphere is investigated with model calculations. Outgassing water molecules seasonally condense around the winter pole in an optically thin layer. This seasonal cap reaches an estimated mass of at least 2 10 kg 3 , and the aphelion summer pole may even retain water throughout summer. If this reservoir is suddenly released by a solar energetic particle event, it would form a denser transient water exosphere. Our model calculations also explore species other than H 2 O. Light exospheric species escape rapidly from Ceres due to its low gravity, and hence their exospheres dissipate soon after their respective source has faded. For example, the theoretical turn-over time in a water exosphere is only 7 hr. A significant fraction of CO 2 and SO 2 molecules can get trapped and stored in perennially shadowed regions at the current spin axis orientation, but not at the higher spin axis tilt, leaving H 2 O as the only common volatile expected to accumulate in polar cold traps over long timescales. The D/H fractionation during migration to the cold traps is only about 10%.

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“…By combining HST observations of the shape of asteroid 1 Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, with other physical properties such as its rotation rate and bulk density, Thomas et al (2005) demonstrated that Ceres is most likely a differentiated body consisting of a dense core of rocky material surrounded by a water-ice mantle comprising 16-26% of the total mass of Ceres. More recently, observations with the Herschel space telescope revealed outgassing of water (Kü ppers et al, 2014), and the Dawn mission confirmed the presence of (sub)-surface ice (Nathues et al, 2015;Combe et al, 2016;Platz et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The proposed Caroline ESA M3 mission to a Main Belt Comet

Jones

Agarwal

Bowles

et al. 2018

Advances in Space Research

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We describe Caroline, a mission proposal submitted to the European Space Agency in 2010 in response to the Cosmic Visions M3 call for medium-sized missions. Caroline would have travelled to a Main Belt Comet (MBC), characterizing the object during a flyby, and capturing dust from its tenuous coma for return to Earth. MBCs are suspected to be transition objects straddling the traditional boundary between volatile-poor rocky asteroids and volatile-rich comets. The weak cometary activity exhibited by these objects indicates the presence of water ice, and may represent the primary type of object that delivered water to the early Earth. The Caroline mission would have employed aerogel as a medium for the capture of dust grains, as successfully used by the NASA Stardust mission to Comet 81P/ Wild 2. We describe the proposed mission design, primary elements of the spacecraft, and provide an overview of the science instruments and their measurement goals. Caroline was ultimately not selected by the European Space Agency during the M3 call; we briefly reflect on the pros and cons of the mission as proposed, and how current and future mission MBC mission proposals such as Castalia could best be approached.

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Surface water-ice deposits in the northern shadowed regions of Ceres

Cited by 81 publications

References 35 publications

Occator crater in color at highest spatial resolution

Occator crater in color at highest spatial resolution

The Putative Cerean Exosphere

The proposed Caroline ESA M3 mission to a Main Belt Comet

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