The stability of the crust of the dwarf planet Ceres

In this article, we study the possibility that Ceres has, or had in the past, a crust heavier than a pure or muddy ice mantle, in principle gravitationally unstable. Such a structure is not unusual in the Solar system: Callisto is an example. In this work, we test how the composition (i.e. the volumetric quantity of ice) and the size of the crust can affect its survival during thermo-physical evolution after differentiation. We have considered two different configurations: the first characterized by a dehydrated silicate core and a mantle made of pure ice, the second with a hydrated silicate core and a muddy mantle (ice with silicate impurities). In both cases, the crust is composed of a mixture of ice and silicates. These structures are constrained by a recent measurement of the mean density by Park et al. The Rayleigh–Taylor instability, which operates in such an unstable structure, could reverse all or part of the crust. The whole unstable crust (or part of it) can interact chemically with the underlying mantle and what is currently observed could be a partially/totally new crust. Our results suggest that, in the case of a pure ice mantle, the primordial crust has not survived until today, with a stability timespan always less than 3 Gyr. Conversely, in the case of a muddy mantle, with some ‘favourable’ conditions (low volumetric ice percentage in the crust and small crustal thickness), the primordial crust could be characterized by a stability timespan compatible with the lifetime of the Solar system.