Geology of Ceres illuminates origin of organics: Dawn spacecraft data suggest organic materials are native to the dwarf

"This discovery of a locally high concentration of organics is intriguing, with broad implications for the astrobiology community," said Dr. Simone Marchi, a senior research scientist at Southwest Research Institute and one of the authors of the paper. "Ceres has evidence of ammonia-bearing hydrated minerals, water ice, carbonates, salts, and now organic materials. With this new finding Dawn has shown that Ceres contains key ingredients for life." Ceres is believed to have originated about 4.5 billion years ago at the dawn of our solar system. [We agree, imvhoto, that we push the question of WTG a little further back.]