6 ms·
The question is whether there is a source of energy for that subsurface ocean. If it's geologically dead the entire thing could be uniformly quite cold. Unlike
by api 6y ago
The question is whether there is a source of energy for that subsurface ocean. If it's geologically dead the entire thing could be uniformly quite cold. Unlike some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn it's not headed by gravitational tidal effects.
- baggy_trough 6y agoIf that's the case why would it be an ocean at all, rather than a block of ice?
- ojnabieoot 6y agoThe article said it was a brine ocean, so salinity or some other solute - even at Earth gravity and air pressure, highly saline water can have a freezing point as low as -20C.
- baggy_trough 6y agoThe maximum surface temperature on Ceres is -118C. How would you get to -20C without geological heating?
- api 6y agoPressure? Water unlike most materials expands when it freezes.
- darkerside 6y agoWhen you apply pressure to ice, does it melt or freeze? Google says, https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593 https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1593
- ojnabieoot 6y agoThe idea of multicellular life on Ceres is implausible for the reasons you mentioned, but there could be something like archaebacteria or other extremophiles with very slow metabolisms and which don't reproduce very often. As it's a brine ocean, the water could be chemically "hot" enough that a form of life is sustainable in a bio-geological cycle. Here's an interesting article exploring the lowest possible temperature for life on earth (which is largely focused on vitrification blocking cellular metabolism but has both theoretical and empirical insights): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3686811/pdf/pone.0066207.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3686811/pdf/pon...