Atmosphere on Ceres?

Look at these two pictures. The first is Ceres, dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter. The second is our home world. Look and compare the perimeters, because to me, it seems that Ceres has a healthy blue air-glow layer just like Earth.





Ceres has potentially more fresh water than Earth. What if it also hosted a decent atmosphere? Here is a good site dedicated to Ceres.

Do you see an atmosphere?


~odievk

Very cool stuff Odie. You think they would have done a flyby with one of the sat's on their way to Saturn.

the first photo is really blurry i don't really have anything to go by with that one

is it blurry for anyone else?

[edit on 8-10-2007 by The Phantom]

You can't go by a distant, blurry image. The picture of Ceres looks the same as early images of Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Wait for the clear, close-up images before developing theories about the asteroid's physical characteristics. It will be a few years, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

There may be something to the idea of atmosphere on Ceres. The wiki article states:

There are some indications that the surface of Ceres is relatively warm and that it may have a tenuous atmosphere and frost.

Astronomer Sten Odenwald believes it may have had a xenon atmosphere at one point, but most of it is probably gone by now. The mathematical explanation for that is here.

Princeton University claims it has a trace atmosphere as well.

reply to post by Shadowhawk


Unfortunately thats the best picture I can find of Ceres. Nasa's Dawn mission will arrive at Ceres in 2015 Its going to take so long because they're using an Ion engine on Dawn, and the probe will first visit Vesta.

[edit on 8-10-2007 by odievk]

I believe it would be tough for Ceres to maintain a sizeable atmosphere. It's diameter is roughly 970KM while our moon is 3,476 KM. I don't discount that it does just not of any significance for elevated surface pressure.

reply to post by TheHorseChestnut


While Ceres is much smaller than the moon, one thing you have to consider is it's also further out in space from the Sun, so the solar wind might not be as strong as it is at 1 AU. That's is not to say that any atmosphere it might have is decent. Then again, Titan's got a thick atmosphere comparable to our planet, only it's made of methane.

Very cool stuff Odie. You think they would have done a flyby with one of the sat's on their way to Saturn.

Every object in the Solar System is in constant motion in 3D space. The probability that Ceres would be in just the right position for an interplanetary probe to take close range photos of it on its way to another target (Jupiter, Saturn etc) is virtually zero.


[edit on 9-10-2007 by Mogget]

[edit on 9-10-2007 by Mogget]

Awesome post odie

It does have a peculiar glow about it for sure...I know 2015 is a lot of sleeps away, but we're going to get some first class images and data...Just imagine if what some suspect about Ceres is on the money ? Or if we find more than we could ever imagine ?

Exciting times for sure...Probes to the satellites I find much more interesting than probes to the planets...When we send a probe to a planet, we go in with a reasonable amount of info to begin with...But with a satellite, we usually know next to nothing...

Look at how much we've learned about Saturn and Jupiter's moons the last decade or two ?

Peace

Woah, theres a Dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter?!

How come I've never heard of it?!

I need to look this up, this could be an amazing discovery.

But I also must say that lots of planets have atmosphere; Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have atmospheres; it's just they are too thin and/or don't have oxygen or too little.

Mars actually has some oxygen but so little it won't support life as we know it.

reply to post by Kacen


Ceres was once considered a planet at one time, but if that was a planet so was the moon wich is much larger. So they relagated it to asteriod status, and now a Dwarf Planet. We have known about it for about 200 years.

Originally posted by Beachcoma
reply to post by TheHorseChestnut

 

While Ceres is much smaller than the moon, one thing you have to consider is it's also further out in space from the Sun, so the solar wind might not be as strong as it is at 1 AU. That's is not to say that any atmosphere it might have is decent. Then again, Titan's got a thick atmosphere comparable to our planet, only it's made of methane.

Very true, the atmosphere might not have been "blown off" by solar wind. Good point. One thing I find interesting is the maximum surface temp of -39 celsius at "daylight". This is remarkable for an object further out then Mars in my opinion which could indicate a sizeable atmosphere.

Originally posted by TheHorseChestnut
reply to post by Kacen

 

Ceres was once considered a planet at one time, but if that was a planet so was the moon wich is much larger. So they relagated it to asteriod status, and now a Dwarf Planet. We have known about it for about 200 years.

Moon can't be consider as a planet as it is the natural satellite of Earth; It doesn't orbit around the sun but earth

My two cents. For a planet to have any self-sustainable atmosphere it has to have a certain ammount of mass for gravity and rotation to hold that atmosphere be it thick or thin in place. If Ceres has even a the

Originally posted by Enceladus

Originally posted by TheHorseChestnut
reply to post by Kacen

 

Moon can't be consider as a planet as it is the natural satellite of Earth; It doesn't orbit around the sun but earth

This is not correct, the Moon was large enough to be classied as a double planet with the Earth and because it is orbiting us rather then the Sun was not a criteria. The definition of a Planet has been debated for a long time, and probably will continue to do so. Do I think the Moon or Ceres are Planets? No I don't. I'm just present alternate legitimate viewpoints.

Actually, the Moon orbits Earth and Sun. The gravitational force of the Sun acting on the Moon is twice that of Earth.

Hey, is there a more current topic where people are talking about Ceres ? I just heard about the NASA Dawn mission to Vesta, and everything they were saying I was thinking "what !? since when ? really ?". My first question...

WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYONE NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS !

I think that NASA even sending a probe with an ION thruster into a part of our solar system is cool enough, but now people are talking about dwarf planets ? # I just got out of high school, and I can tell you they don't teach you enough in there. Like likes get the word out.. or something ! This is awesome !

2015 will be a crazy year if we even survive 2012 though