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The Asteroid That Destroyed Dinosaurs Had a DEADLY Companion!
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these enhanced-color renderings that use images from NASA’s Dawn mission. New thermal and chemicals models that rely on the mission’s data indicate Ceres may have long ago had conditions suitable for life.NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA The dwarf planet is cold now, but new research paints a picture of Ceres hosting a deep, long-lived energy source that may have maintained habitable conditions in the past.
New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some 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.
Science data from NASA’s Dawn mission, which ended in 2018, previously showed that the bright, reflective regions on Ceres’ surface are mostly made of salts left over from liquid that percolated up from underground. Later analysis in 2020 found that the source of this liquid was an enormous reservoir of brine, or salty water, below the surface. In other research, the Dawn mission also revealed evidence that Ceres has organic material in the form of carbon molecules — essential, though not sufficient on its own, to support microbial cells.
The presence of water and carbon molecules are two critical pieces of the habitability puzzle on Ceres. The new findings offer the third: a long-lasting source of chemical energy in Ceres’ ancient past that could have made it possible for microorganisms to survive. This result does not mean that Ceres had life, but rather, that there likely was “food” available should life have ever arisen on Ceres.
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. Carbon dioxide and methane are among the molecules carrying chemical energy beneath Ceres’ surface.NASA/JPL-Caltech In the study, published in Science Advances on Aug. 20, the authors built thermal and chemical models mimicking the temperature and composition of Ceres’ interior over time. They found that 2.5 billion years or so ago, Ceres’ subsurface ocean may have had a steady supply of hot water containing dissolved gases traveling up from metamorphosed rocks in the rocky core. The heat came from the decay of radioactive elements within the dwarf planet’s rocky interior that occurred when Ceres was young — an internal process thought to be common in our solar system.
“On Earth, when hot water from deep underground mixes with the ocean, the result is often a buffet for microbes — a feast of chemical energy. So it could have big implications if we could determine whether Ceres’ ocean had an influx of hydrothermal fluid in the past,” said Sam Courville, lead author of the study. Now based at Arizona State University in Tempe, he led the research while working as an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which also managed the Dawn mission.
Catching Chill
The Ceres we know today is unlikely to be habitable. It is cooler, with more ice and less water than in the past. There is currently insufficient heat from radioactive decay within Ceres to keep the water from freezing, and what liquid remains has become a concentrated brine.
The period when Ceres would most likely have been habitable was between a half-billion and 2 billion years after it formed (or about 2.5 billion to 4 billion years ago), when its rocky core reached its peak temperature. That’s when warm fluids would have been introduced into Ceres’ underground water.
The dwarf planet also doesn’t have the benefit of present-day internal heating generated by the push and pull of orbiting a large planet, like Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa do. So Ceres’ greatest potential for habitability-fueling energy was in the past.
This result has implications for water-rich objects throughout the outer solar system, too. Many of the other icy moons and dwarf planets that are of similar size to Ceres (about 585 miles, or 940 kilometers, in diameter) and don’t have significant internal heating from the gravitational pull of planets could have also had a period of habitability in their past.
More About Dawn
A division of Caltech in Pasadena, JPL 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:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/dawn/overview/
News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-287-4115
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NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Last Updated Aug 20, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
ESA’s Hera mission has captured images of asteroids (1126) Otero and (18805) Kellyday. Though distant and faint, the early observations serve as both a successful instrument test and a demonstration of agile spacecraft operations that could prove useful for planetary defence.
Hera is currently travelling through space on its way to a binary asteroid system. In 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted the asteroid Dimorphos, changing its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos. Now, Hera is returning to the system to help turn asteroid deflection into a reliable technique for planetary defence.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
An image of Betelgeuse, the yellow-red star, and the signature of its close companion, the faint blue object.Data: NASA/JPL/NOIRlab. Visualization: NOIRLAB. A century-old hypothesis that Betelgeuse, the 10th brightest star in our night sky, is orbited by a very close companion star was proved true by a team of astrophysicists led by a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
The research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in the paper “Probable Direct Imaging Discovery of the Stellar Companion to Betelgeuse.”
Fluctuations in the brightness and measured velocity of Betelgeuse, the closest red supergiant star to Earth, had long presented clues that it may have a partner, but the bigger star’s intense glow made direct observations of any fainter neighbors nearly impossible.
Two recent studies by other teams of astronomers reignited the companion star hypothesis by using more than 100 years of Betelgeuse observations to provide predictions of the companion’s location and brightness.
If the smaller star did exist, the location predictions suggested that scientists had a window of just a few months to observe the companion star at its widest separation from Betelgeuse, as it orbited near the visible edge of the supergiant. After that, they would have to wait another three years for it to orbit to the other side and again leave the overpowering glow of its larger companion.
Searches for the companion were initially made using space-based telescopes, because observing through Earth’s atmosphere can blur images of astronomical objects. But these efforts did not detect the companion.
Steve Howell, a senior research scientist at Ames, recognized the ground-based Gemini North telescope in Hawai’i, one of the largest in the world, paired with a special, high-resolution camera built by NASA, had the potential to directly observe the close companion to Betelgeuse, despite the atmospheric blurring.
Officially called the ‘Alopeke speckle instrument, the advanced imaging camera let them obtain many thousands of short exposures to measure the atmospheric interference in their data and remove it with detailed image processing, providing an image of Betelgeuse and its companion.
Howell’s team detected the very faint companion star right where it was predicted to be, orbiting very close to the outer edge of Betelgeuse.
“I hope our discovery excites other astrophysicists about the robust power of ground-based telescopes and speckle imagers – a key to opening new observational windows,” said Howell. “This can help unlock the great mysteries in our universe.”
To start, this discovery of a close companion to Betelgeuse may explain why other similar red supergiant stars undergo periodic changes in their brightness on the scale of many years.
Howell plans to continue observations of Betelgeuse’s stellar companion to better understand its nature. The companion star will again return to its greatest separation from Betelgeuse in November 2027, a time when it will be easiest to detect.
Having found the long-anticipated companion star, Howell turned to giving it a name. The traditional star name “Betelgeuse” derives from Arabic, meaning “the hand of al-Jawza’,” a female figure in old Arabian legend. Fittingly, Howell’s team named the orbiting companion “Siwarha,” meaning “her bracelet.”
Photo of the constellation Orion, showing the location of Betelgeuse – and its newfound companion star.NOIRLab/Eckhard Slawik The NASA–National Science Foundation Exoplanet Observational Research Program (NN-EXPLORE) is a joint initiative to advance U.S. exoplanet science by providing the community with access to cutting-edge, ground-based observational facilities. Managed by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program, NN-EXPLORE supports and enhances the scientific return of space missions such as Kepler, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), Hubble Space Telescope, and James Webb Space Telescope by enabling essential follow-up observations from the ground—creating strong synergies between space-based discoveries and ground-based characterization. NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program is located at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
To learn more about NN-EXPLORE, visit:
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/NNExplore/overview
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Last Updated Jul 23, 2025 Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Asteroid 2024 YR4 made headlines earlier this year when its probability of impacting Earth in 2032 rose as high as 3%. While an Earth impact has now been ruled out, the asteroid’s story continues.
The final glimpse of the asteroid as it faded out of view of humankind’s most powerful telescopes left it with a 4% chance of colliding with the Moon on 22 December 2032.
The likelihood of a lunar impact will now remain stable until the asteroid returns to view in mid-2028. In this FAQ, find out why we are left with this lingering uncertainty and how ESA's planned NEOMIR space telescope will help us avoid similar situations in the future.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
A researcher inspects the interior of a male American horseshoe crab at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Known scientifically as Limulus polyphemus, the American horseshoe crab is vital to researchers’ understanding of the overall health of NASA Kennedy’s ecosystem.NASA They’re known as “living fossils”.
For over 450 million years, horseshoe crabs have been an ecologically vital part of our planet. They’re one of the few surviving species on Earth dating back to the dinosaurs.
At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) is one of more than 1,500 types of animals and plants you can find living on its over 144,000 acres, the majority of which is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service. Sharing a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore, NASA Kennedy is one of the most biologically diverse places in the United States.
The center’s land, water, and air species live alongside the symbols of America’s space program: the vital facilities and infrastructure that support the many launches at NASA Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as well as the rockets enabling humanity’s exploration of the cosmos.
Researchers measure the shell of a male and female American horseshoe crab at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Known scientifically as Limulus polyphemus, the American horseshoe crab is vital to researchers’ understanding of the overall health of NASA Kennedy’s ecosystem. Preserving NASA Kennedy’s wildlife while also fulfilling the agency’s mission requires a balanced approach. The American horseshoe crab exemplifies that balance.
Horseshoe crabs are keystone species in coastal and estuary systems like the ones surrounding Earth’s premier spaceport. By themselves, these resilient arthropods are a strong indicator of how an ecosystem is doing to support the migratory birds, sea turtles, alligators and other wildlife who rely on it for their survival.
“The presence and abundance of horseshoe crabs influence the structure and functioning of the entire ecosystem,” said James T. Brooks, an environmental protection specialist at NASA Kennedy. “Their eggs provide a vital food source for many shorebirds in coastal habitats, and their feeding activities help shape the composition of plants and animals that live at the bottom of the ocean or in rivers and lakes. Changes in horseshoe crab populations can signal broader ecological issues, such as pollution or habitat loss.”
As featured recently on NASA+, biologists survey NASA Kennedy’s beaches regularly for horseshoe crabs, counting each one they spot and tagging them with devices that lets researchers study their migration patterns and survival rates. The devices also track the crabs’ spawning activity, habitat health, and population trends, especially during peak breeding seasons in spring and summer.
All this data helps in assessing the overall health of NASA Kennedy’s ecosystem, but horseshoe crabs also play a vital role in humanity’s health. Their blue, copper-based blood contains a substance called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, critical for detecting bacterial contamination in medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and vaccines.
Their unique value in ensuring biomedical safety underscores why NASA Kennedy emphasizes ecological monitoring in addition to its roles in the global space economy, national defense, and space exploration.
A male and female American horseshoe crab meet during mating season at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Known scientifically as Limulus polyphemus, the American horseshoe crab is vital to researchers’ understanding of the overall health of NASA Kennedy’s ecosystem. NASA At NASA Kennedy, horseshoe crabs are protected and monitored through habitat restoration projects like rebuilding shorelines eroded by storms and minimizing human impact on nesting sites. These initiatives ensure that the spaceport’s operations coexist harmoniously with nature and deepen our understanding of Earth’s interconnected ecosystems.
On this Earth Day, NASA Kennedy celebrates the important role these ancient mariners play as we launch humanity’s future.
About the Author
Messod C. Bendayan
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