This crater on dwarf planet Ceres that may hold another icy volcano, scientists say

There is a possibility that the dwarf planet may be releasing cryovolcanoes in another spot.

A new study has found salt deposits in a crater for the first time in pictures from the Dawn mission. The research team says that the brine rose to the surface from the salt deposits.

The implication is that there might be a source of salt underneath the asteroid, such as a possible ocean. The impact that formed Urvara 250 million years ago might have been the source of the salts.

There are photos of dwarf planet Ceres.

The larger implication is what water could mean on a small world that is less than 300 miles in diameter, especially in terms of understanding the formation of Ceres and larger dwarf planets like it. It is far from the first study to suggest a global ocean hidden inside the dwarf planet, and adds to years of speculation about how much liquid water could be in a tiny world far out in the solar system.

The lead author of the study said that the large impact structures on the dwarf planet give us access to the deeper layers.

The 105-mile-wide (170 km) Urvara is an example of the geological processes that have altered the dwarf planet's surface.

The team mostly relied on images taken by Dawn during its extended mission, which brought the spacecraft to within just 22 miles of the surface to take high-resolution photography. The data that was used in the study was obtained by two Dawn Framing Cameras.

The researchers said in the release that the images showed a diverse landscape, including terraced crater walls, a large mountain range, sharp cliffs, and bright material that looks a lot like salts.

The salts are notable for their potential for cryovolcanoes, but also because they are close to organic compounds, meaning the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it. Salt deposits and organic compounds were found together for the first time. Researchers said that they were concentrated on a slope west of the central mountains.

Guneshwar Thangjam, a scientist at the National Institute of Science Education and Research in India, said that the organics find has important implications for the overall geologic history of Ceres.

The team will compare the organics from Ernutet to the ones from Urvara to better answer the links between habitability and biology.

The study was published in Nature.

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