London – Researchers germans and americans have detected water ice in regions of the dwarf planet Ceres, who remain in perpetual darkness, according to a study published in the online edition of the journal Nature Astronomy.
Ceres, the largest object the Asteroid Belt of the Solar System, is the third planetary body, after Mercury and the Moon, where it has been found ice in the polar regions.
The presence of water vapor on Ceres was detected for the first time since the Earth in 2014 and was confirmed on march 2015 by the probe Dawn, in orbit of the dwarf planet.
Since then, scientists have analyzed the areas of the planet where the sunlight never comes directly, in search of water in the solid state.
Thomas Platz, of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, is responsible for a new analysis of images taken by the Dawn of the craters on the region of the north pole of Ceres.
The group of researchers identified more than 600 craters in those regions of perpetual shade, ten of which show some glare
The spectroscopic study of these flashes-that identifies the type of molecules of a material from its spectrum – has confirmed that it is ice-cold water.
scientists emphasize that Ceres, located between Mars and Jupiter, it presents a limited number of bright dots in its polar region, compared with Mercury, where the areas in shadow appear full of sparkles.
Even so, the confirmation of the presence of ice on the planet leads researchers to think that the process by which the water is trapped in the shadow areas of the bodies with atmospheres almost non-existent, it is common in the Solar System.
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