NASA has announced the discovery of a massive concentration of carbonate minerals in the bright spots on Ceres.

NASA scientists are learning more about the peculiar bright spots on Ceres and have found that they contain “the highest concentration of carbonate minerals ever seen outside Earth.” 
The agency announced the discovery in a recent press release. 
Maria Cristina De Sanctis, the lead researcher, is quoted as confirming that, “this is the first time we see this kind of material elsewhere in the solar system in such a large amount.” 
The bright spots are located in the dwarf planet’s Occator Crater. 
According to the research, the dominant mineral detected in the spots is sodium carbonate which is “a kind of salt found on Earth in hydrothermal environments.” 
The scientists believe it originated from the inside of Ceres, possibly due to “interior hydrothermal activity, which pushed these materials to the surface within Occator.” 
This means that “liquid water may have existed beneath the surface of Ceres in recent geological time.” 
As such, the “salts could be remnants of an ocean, or localized bodies of water, that reached the surface and then froze millions of years ago.” 
The next step is to determine if the carbonates appear in other parts of Ceres.