We think that there's lots of water-ice near Ceres surface, and that it gets gradually less icy as you go deeper and deeper," Sori said. "People used to think that if Ceres was very icy, the craters would deform quickly over time, like glaciers flowing on Earth, or like gooey flowing honey. However, we've shown through our simulations that ice can be much stronger in conditions on Ceres than previously predicted if you mix in just a little bit of solid rock.
Our interpretation of all this is that Ceres used to be an 'ocean world' like Europa (one of Jupiter's moons), but with a dirty, muddy ocean," Sori said. "As that muddy ocean froze over time, it created an icy crust with a little bit of rocky material trapped in it.
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