资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

The solar wind interaction with Ceres is studied for a high water vapor release from its surface using a hybrid model including photoionization. We use a water vapor production rate of 6kg/s, thought to be due to subsurface sublimation, corresponding to a detection on 6 March 2013 by the Herschel Space Observatory. We present the general morphology of the plasma interactions, both close to Ceres and on a larger scale. Mass loading of water ions causes a magnetic pileup region in front of Ceres, where the solar wind deflects up to 15 degrees and slows down by 15%. The global plasma interaction with Ceres is not greatly affected by the source location of water vapor nor on gravity, only on the production rate of water vapor. On a global scale, Ceres has a comet-like interaction with the solar wind with observable perturbations farther than 250 Ceres radii downstream of the body.