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Solar system

Evaporating asteroid

Nature volume 505, pages 487–488 (2014)Cite this article

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The asteroid Ceres has been thought to contain abundant water. Observations acquired with the Herschel Space Observatory now show that this Solar System object is spewing water vapour from its surface. See Letter p.525

Writing in this issue, Küppers et al.1 report that Ceres — a dwarf planet or the largest asteroid in the Solar System, depending on the definition used — is releasing water vapour from its surface at a rate of about 2 × 1026 molecules, or 6 kilograms, per second. The presence and abundance of water in asteroids2,3 are relevant to many areas of research on the Solar System, ranging from the origin of water and life on Earth to the large-scale migration of giant planets such as Jupiter.

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Figure 1: Artist's impression of the asteroid Ceres.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Humberto Campins and Christine M. Comfort are in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816-2385, USA.

    Humberto Campins & Christine M. Comfort

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  1. Humberto Campins
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  2. Christine M. Comfort
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Correspondence to Humberto Campins.

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Campins, H., Comfort, C. Evaporating asteroid. Nature 505, 487–488 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505487a

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