A Planet in Our Solar System Could Have Alien Life

Further researching a dwarf planet in our solar system could be the best chance of finding alien life. That much is according to one new study released by a team of scientists looking into the origins of Ceres, the largest item in our solar system’s asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter.

“The organics were initially detected in the vicinity of a large impact crater, which is what motivated us to look at how impacts affect these organics,” Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and study lead author, wrote in a statement accompanying the study. “We are finding that organics may be more widespread than first reported and that they seem to be resilient to impacts with Ceres-like conditions.”

The organics the team researched aren’t necessarily humanoid alien life but rather, microorganisms that could potentially be found across the cosmos.

“By capitalizing on the strengths of two different datasets collected over Ceres, we’ve been able to map potential organic-rich areas on Ceres at higher resolution,” added University of Maryland researcher Juan Rizos. “We can see a very good correlation of organics with units from older impacts and with other minerals like carbonates that also indicate the presence of water. While the origin of the organics remains poorly understood, we now have good evidence that they formed in Ceres and likely in the presence of water.”

Rizos continued, “There is a possibility that a large interior reservoir of organics may be found inside Ceres. So, from my perspective, that result increases the astrobiological potential of Ceres.”

Though the study doesn’t definitively prove Ceres plays host to microbial life, the team hopes further data can be captured by NASA’s Lucy mission, which is expected to pass through the area as early as November 1st.

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