In the solar system, in addition to the star Sun and the eight planets, there are also a large number of moons, asteroids, and dwarf planets. Ceres is one of the many dwarf planets. Ceres is a bit of a different story: compared to Earth, Ceres is small in size and has incredible water resources. In short, this is a planet full of mysteries.
Ceres is located between Mars and Jupiter. In terms of orbit, Ceres is heavily influenced by Jupiter. After all, Jupiter has an alias, called the second sun of the solar system.
Ceres was discovered in the early 19th century, when astronomers discovered the existence of Ceres while observing Jupiter. Of course, this discovery did not attract too much attention from astronomers at the time, but with the continuous consolidation of the astronomical foundation in the astronomical community, human beings discovered that most of the dwarf planets in the solar system are gathered near the Kuiper belt, but Ceres is more special, located in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars - you know, in the circle of dwarf planets, there is a giant like Pluto, so the volume of Ceres is mediocre, but in the circle of the asteroid belt, the volume of Ceres can be called a monopoly. Stand out from the crowd – After all, Ceres has about the same surface area as the Alaska region of Earth. Although it is not much compared to Earth, it has to crush most asteroids.
So if you take the asteroid belt as a reference, Ceres can be called a giant existence.
Ceres has been explored to some extent at present. A day on Ceres is roughly equivalent to about 9 hours on Earth – that is, a day on Earth is equivalent to three days on Ceres. But Ceres has a long one-year cycle: a year on Ceres is equivalent to four and a half years on Earth. At the same time, Ceres also has its own atmosphere, but because it is too small, the atmosphere of Ceres is relatively thin. At the same time, Ceres' special position also means that it often collides with other asteroids. As a result, there are comparatively more craters on Ceres.
Scientific research has found that Ceres was formed in the early days of the formation of the solar system. Therefore, if human beings want to understand the history of the early formation of the solar system, they need to have a more in-depth study of Ceres. Therefore, mankind sent a probe to conduct a close study of Ceres, and it took seven and a half years from the launch of this probe to its arrival on Ceres.
When the probe arrived at Ceres, it took thousands of photographs of Ceres and transmitted them to Earth. The astronomical community was able to learn more about Ceres through the probe. It has been discovered that Ceres is full of craters, and at the same time, there are many deposits formed by salt deposits in the craters. When the sun's rays hit Ceres, these salts are very reflective as crystals, so astronomical telescopes on Earth can often see these reflected light from Ceres through telescopes. But until the probe arrived on Ceres, it was not clear what exactly produced the reflected light.
At the same time, based on the data transmitted back by the probe, the astronomical community suspects that there is liquid water beneath the surface of Ceres, and that it may be larger than the liquid water on Earth. And, if Ceres' subterranean ocean has a sufficient window of time, then it is not impossible to give birth to primitive life.
Therefore, in the future, it is necessary for humans to send robots to explore the underground world of Ceres again to determine the existence of the underground ocean and the existence of life on Ceres.