Dawn captures something shiny on Ceres

Although Pluto has taken center stage, another spacecraft called “Dawn” is doing something quite special as well.  It is the first spacecraft that will orbit two dwarf planets, the first of which was Vesta back in 2011, and then Ceres in March of this year, even before New Horizons reached Pluto.

And Ceres has provided some pretty big surprises.

We already expected it was made up of rock and ice, but I don’t think we expected shiny spots on it’s surface.  Several in fact after the photos came back from the Dawn spacecraft.

The article below discusses in much more detail and is well worth a read and a share!

…… Ever since Dawn entered orbit around Ceres earlier this year, scientists have been left baffled by the appearance of bright spots seemingly reflecting sunlight in craters on the surface. Theories for their origin have ranged from ice – exposed by impacts on the surface – to salt flats or even cryovolcanoes.

Now scientists might be closer to solving the mystery by spotting a “haze” above one group of spots, suggesting their origin is ice. The latest findings were revealed by Christopher Russell, the principal investigator on the mission, at an exploration meeting at NASA’s Ames Research Center yesterday.

If confirmed, this would be the first such haze ever found in the asteroid belt, and could indicate the presence of ice turning into gas – known as sublimation – on Ceres. The haze was found confined to the Occator crater, which contains the most famous spots on the surface, labelled Spot 5.

 

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft (artist’s impression shown) entered orbit around Ceres on March 6, 2015. NASA/JPL-Caltech.

…… Dawn is continuing to spiral closer and closer to Ceres as it lowers its orbit, and by August it will be 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) above the surface, compared to less than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) now. It will also soon use its infrared spectrometer, which should be able to work out if the spots are made of ice or salt.

Source: IFLScience

For the full article, please visit IFLScience.

Cover Photo credit: A “haze” has been spotted above Spot 5 in Occator crater, pictured. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.