Why Not Ceres ?

Ceres 

I was conflicted about making this post for many reasons, mainly because I don't do mid-week posts, but here we are.
I decided to write this in advance of the proposed N.A.S.A. news release on 22nd Feb - not to ' rain on their parade' , but rather, to enhance the experience.
After all, the proverbial cat is out of the bag already, and I think the leak emanates from somewhere in Europe (details of the whole thing here ).
Personally, I'm disappointed, as it overshadows the quite astonishing news that organic matter has been found on the planetoid , Ceres.
Remember the Dawn explorer , and my previous excitement over the mysterious bright patches which turned out to be forms of salt from subsurface waters ?
Yes ?
Well. not those.
Apparently these organic materials are in an area surrounding a particular crater.
This is not the place to embark on fanciful theorising; but why should organic matter exist in one particular area ?
If the material is from a subsurface body of water, why is there no trace in other areas ?
I'm already letting my feverish monkey - brain get excited by a myriad of possibilities , but this, to me, is a perfect reason to explore further.
Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and I would argue that it warrants closer investigation - if the only concern is cost, it would surely be a fraction of any Mars expedition.
The previous link is a fanciful Bloomberg piece of speculation, but the idea is there.
Let's just concentrate on exploration rather than the plundering of minerals - after all , the assumption that it's there for the taking smacks of colonial era greed and ignorance - but we're better than that, right ?

Regardless, N.A.S.A. will probably tell us of the three Earth-like worlds orbiting a red dwarf  some 40 light years away; and that is genuinely exciting, especially when the chance of extraterrestrial life is introduced , but even with our best speculative technology, it would take us 60 years in a craft with an immense lightsail to get there, and only then if we could upscale the technology to make it a manned mission, rather than a postage stamp - sized craft.

Just to conclude, this post is my response to the imminent N.A.S.A. announcement - I think they are missing a point closer to home .
Ceres is on a par with Europa, Titan and Enceladus in the ongoing search for life.


Thank you for reading this far - normal service will be resumed in a few days !