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. Ceres was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily. Originally considered a planet, it was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s after the discovery of dozens of other objects in similar orbits.

In 2006, it was reclassified again as a dwarf planet – the only one always inside Neptune's orbit – because, at 940 km (580 mi) in diameter, it is the only asteroid large enough for its gravity to make it plastic and to maintain it as a spheroid. Even though Ceres comprises 25% of the asteroid belt's total mass, Pluto is still 14 times more massive. And when NASA's Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft.Dawn found Ceres's surface to be a mixture of water ice and hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. Gravity data suggest Ceres to be partially differentiated into a muddy (ice-rock) mantle/core and a less-dense but stronger crust that is at most 30% ice by volume.

Ceres's small size means that any internal ocean of liquid water it may once have possessed has likely frozen by now. It is not completely frozen, however: brines still flow through the outer mantle and reach the surface, allowing cryovolcanoes such as Ahuna Mons to form at the rate of about one every 50 million years. This makes Ceres the closest known cryovolcanic body to the Sun, and the brines provide a potential habitat for microbial life. In January 2014, emissions of water vapor were detected around Ceres, creating a tenuous, transient atmosphere known as an exosphere. This was unexpected because asteroids typically do not emit vapor, a hallmark of comets.

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  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    War in Iran probably by 2030 in an attempt to cobble together some national unity as conditions continue to decline - Iran is sufficiently prepared to form a serious opposition and tens of thousands of American troops die for no particular gains. United States does the typical thing of setting goals and then claiming that they met those goals and so won the war and then withdraws, but except among already ideologically committed liberals/conservatives (depending on who's in power when the war begins), it all falls short.

    Closure of many military bases in many countries as time goes by. As much deflection as possible as to why those bases were there in the first place and why the people there seem happy about it. Interviews with disgruntled "citizens" who strangely have American accents.

    Unification of South American countries under a socialist banner spearheaded by China when Bolsonaro is outed, in clear opposition of the neo-Monroe Doctrine. Cuba, Venezuela etc still under American sanctions but are now able to get the resources they need from China's network, making the "but castro maduro dictator venezuela no food communism?!?!" argument have no legs to stand on (but Americans will still do it).

    Covid deaths are normalized, but long covid gets more and more prevalent in western countries but particularly the United States, which increasingly wreaks havoc on an already collapsing healthcare system. Life expectancies drop for a century, and declines in hospital service have knock-on effects for infant mortality and general treatment of illnesses and accidents.

    America, for the first time, struggles to attract immigrants as conditions deteriorate there and improve in developing countries. This exacerbates an aging population crisis.