Emily Chan
The crater wall has partially eroded inward and surrounds a smaller crater that takes up an area of about nine miles by seven miles.
It covers the eastern half of the Consus crater’s floor. The yellowish material is found on the edge of the smaller crater and slightly east of it. The yellowish material is rich in ammonium.
In the past, scientists thought that ammonium-rich minerals could only form through contact with ammonium ice at the solar system’s outer edge.
It evaporates quickly close to the sun. Therefore, Ceres must’ve formed at the edge of the solar system and moved to the asteroid belt.
However, the current study shows a connection between ammonium and salty deposits. The components of ammonium were likely already in the foundation of Ceres.
Gradually, it built up into a thick layer of brine that extended from the dwarf planet’s mantle to the crust.
Then, cryovolcanic activity caused the brine to rise. Over time, it seeped into Ceres’ crust, which absorbed the ammonium.
So, it is possible that Ceres originated right in the asteroid belt rather than at the outer edge of the solar system.
The study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
