Overview

Thanks to NASA's Dawn mission, the last half-decade has witnessed a significant advance in our understanding of Ceres. The largest object between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is the most water-rich body in the inner solar system after Earth which shows evidence of brine-driven activity in its recent history, and even possibly at the present. The potential existence of a subsurface ocean or regional seas in Ceres and its salt- and organic-rich composition underscore its astro-biological significance. After signaling the discovery of the asteroid belt more than two centuries ago, Ceres once again reveals new insights for us to understand the formation, evolution, and habitability of this large icy body in our solar system. This book reviews the current state of knowledge about Ceres after the extensive scientific exploration by the Dawn mission. Starting from the introduction of the discovery of Ceres and what we know about this enigmatic world before Dawn's arrival, each chapter focuses on one aspect of Ceres, including its surface composition, its geology, the role of water ice in shaping Ceres's surface, its interior structure, and expressions of cryovolcanic or brine activity at the surface. Following this framework, the book addresses the astro-biological significance of Ceres. The last chapter summarizes the new questions opened by the Dawn mission and the next step to exploring the dwarf planet closest to Earth.

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Dr Jian-Yang Li is a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, Arizona, USA. His interest in Ceres started during his PhD research when he produced the then-highest resolution maps of Ceres from Hubble Space Telescope images. These maps revealed a remarkably uniform surface and suggested the uniqueness of Ceres among asteroids. After obtaining his PhD in Astronomy from the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA in 2005, he was involved in the Dawn mission as an affiliate, participating scientist, and co-investigator. He was also involved in a number of small bodies exploration missions such as Deep Impact, Stardust-NExT, EPOXI, OSIRIS-REx, and DART. Dr Julie Castillo-Rogez is a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA. She holds a PhD in Geophysics from Rennes University, France. She has been involved in the Dawn mission since 2014, first as an affiliate, then a co-investigator, project scientist, and deputy principal investigator. Dr Castillo-Rogez was also an affiliate of the Cassini mission and is currently a co-investigator on the Europa Clipper mission and the science principal investigator for the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout CubeSat mission.

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