Fluid Flow in Ceres Due to Core Heating
This illustration depicts the interior of dwarf planet Ceres, including the transfer of water and gases from the rocky core to a reservoir of salty water as a consequence of internal heating. A couple examples of molecules carrying chemical energy – carbon dioxide and methane – are included in the illustration. Research published in Science Advances on Aug. 20, 2025, relies on data from NASA's Dawn mission to find that chemical energy inside Ceres may have lasted long enough to fuel microbial metabolisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, the finding supports theories that this intriguing dwarf planet, which is the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may have once had conditions suitable to support single-celled lifeforms.
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed Dawn's mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn was a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. JPL was responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Northrop Grumman in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute were international partners on the mission team.
For a complete list of mission participants, visit: