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The goal of Project GAUSS (Genesis of Asteroids and evolUtion of the Solar System) is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible candidate of ocean worlds and the largest reservoir of water in the inner Solar System. It shows active volcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history. Recent evidence for the existence of a subsurface ocean on Ceres and the complex geochemistry suggest past habitability and even the potential for ongoing habitability. GAUSS will return samples from Ceres with the aim of answering the following top-level scientific questions:What is the origin of Ceres and what does this imply for the origin of water and other volatiles in the inner Solar System?What are the physical properties and internal structure of Ceres? What do they tell us about the evolutionary and aqueous alteration history of dwarf planets?What are the astrobiological implications of Ceres? Is it still habitable today?What are the mineralogical connections between Ceres and our current collections of carbonaceous meteorites? © 2023 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
The early concept of the white paper has benefitted from various discussions with Professor Adam Showman, who sadly passed away in March 2020. His contribution and influence are gratefully acknowledged and sorely missed. Part of this work has been carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). J.-Y.L. acknowledges partial support from the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute 2016 (SSERVI16) Cooperative Agreement (grant NNH16ZDA001N), SSERVI-TREX to the Planetary Science Institute. J.A. acknowledges support from the European Research Council Starting Grant 757390 (CAstRA). A.J.C. and G.H.J. acknowledge support from the STFC consolidated grant to UCL-MSSL STS0002401. P. Santos-Sanz, and R. Duffard acknowledges financial support by the Spanish grant AYA- RTI2018-098657-J-I00 ’LEO-SBNAF’ (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). J.L. Ortiz, P. Santos-Sanz, and R. Duffard acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ’Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). J.M.T-R. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (project PGC2018-097374-B-I00). J.M.T-R.’s research has been funded by the research project (PGC2018-097374-B-I00), funded by FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación – Agencia Estatal de Investigación. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.