LOS ANGELES (AP) — A NASA spacecraft has spotted ice in several shadowy craters on the dwarf planet Ceres.
Deposits of ice have previously been spied in craters on Mercury and our moon, also in regions that are permanently in the dark.
Of the 600 craters on Ceres that never receive sunlight, researchers identified 10 places with ice.
Ice appears to be spotty on the surface of Ceres, but a different team found ice is widespread just below the surface.
The findings were presented Thursday at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit two celestial bodies to understand how the solar system evolved. It has been studying Ceres for over a year after visiting the asteroid Vesta.