Former Planet Ceres Moved to Asteroid Belt
In trying to understand why Ceres’ misty exosphere contains ammonia, simulations find that the dwarf planet formed past Saturn and moved inward.
Where you are in the solar system changes just how much of an effect the Sun has on you. For Earth, the Sun can cause bright aurorae that can extend down into the mid-latitudes. For comets, the changing distance to the Sun is what gives us cometary tails. But if a larger body was moved from the outer solar system to the inner, that distance to the Sun has different effects.
Scientists trying to understand the composition of the thin, misty atmosphere on Ceres have now discovered that the dwarf planet likely formed in the outer solar system and was moved inward. The early days of planetary formation were turbulent times, with Jupiter and Saturn vying for space, ice giants like Uranus and Neptune getting pushed outward or even yeeted out of the solar system, and smaller bodies bouncing around like billiard balls as gravitational forces pulled on them in every direction. In the journal Icarus, a team of researchers explains how they used computer models to work through their theory that Ceres formed farther out.
