From this distance, it takes sunlight 22 minutes to travel from the Sun to Ceres.Ī 3D model of Ceres, a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Ceres would be about as big as a poppy seed.įrom an average distance of 257 million miles (413 million kilometers), Ceres is 2.8 astronomical units away from the Sun. With a radius of 296 miles (476 kilometers), Ceres is 1/13 the radius of Earth. If Ceres does not have living things today, there may be signs it harbored life in the past. If anything does live on Ceres, it's likely to be very small microbes similar to bacteria. Here on Earth, water is essential for life, so it's possible that with this ingredient and a few other conditions met, life possibly could exist there. Ceres has something a lot of other planets don't: water. Potential for LifeĬeres is one of the few places in our solar system where scientists would like to search for possible signs of life. The word cereal comes from the same name. NamesakeĬeres is named for the Roman goddess of corn and harvests.
Even though Ceres comprises 25% of the asteroid belt's total mass, Pluto is still 14 times more massive. When NASA's Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft.Ĭalled an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it's the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system.
0 kommentar(er)
