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NASA is asking for guesses about what's creating those bright spots on Ceres. Certainly until Dawn gets a closer look over the next few months, it's anyone's guess what those spots could be.

What do you think they are? Cast your vote here.

Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 06/03/15 10:30 PM.

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People are trying to guess what the strange bright spots on Ceres are. Of the named choices "ICE" is the most popular so far with 29% of the votes. But more people are going for the safe option "OTHER" (40%). Have you cast your vote?


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In the excitement of all that we're finding out about Pluto from the New Horizons fly-by, Dawn's study of Ceres has faded into the background. However this visit to a dwarf planet is also finding some puzzles that is keeping planetary scientists busy.

The mysterious white spots on Ceres remain a mystery. And one of them has become even more mysterious. Last year ESA's Herschel Space Observatory data showed water vapor spraying off Ceres, suggesting that it was geologically active – perhaps like Saturn's moon Enceladus. Now Dawn has shown a haze over crater Occator. This crater has a large bright area in the center and some smaller spots nearby. The scientists are wondering what's going on.


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This is new, a color-coded map of Ceres from NASA's Dawn mission. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

It's labeled with names of prominent craters - all approved by the International Astronomical Union. The names come from those of agricultural deities of various cultures. Here's a list of those shown on the map.

There are craters 3.7 miles (6 km) deep and mountains rising about the same distance from the surface. The lowest areas are in blue and the highest in red.

Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 07/31/15 01:51 AM.

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A video from the Dawn team whose spacecraft is orbiting the rocky dwarf planet Ceres.

The flyover animation was generated from high resolution images taken during April and May, and is narrated by Marc Rayman, Dawn Chief Engineer and Mission Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. Highlights are the crater Occator – 60 miles (95 km) across and 2 miles (3 km) across – and a mountain 4 miles (6 km) high.

If you have some red/blue 3D glasses it ends with a 3D view of Ceres. (I don't, so that bit didn't look like much.)


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A new close-up view of Occator crater. Dawn's current orbit has provided the best images so far of Occator crater and its bright spots. The resolution is 140 m (450 ft) per pixel. It “[gives] scientists a deeper perspective on these very unusual features,” says NASA. However they still don't know what they are.


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Get an eyeful of this! It's psychedelic Ceres in all its glory.

But it isn't that the scientists have been at the magic mushrooms. The view is a serious scientific tool. It was put together from images captured by the Dawn spacecraft in August and September. Using infrared filters allowed very subtle differences in coloration to show up. This shows where there are differences in the ages of surface features and the minerals that they contain.


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Several days ago Dawn started a seven-week maneuver to get close enough to the surface of Ceres to study the bright spots. These have intrigued and baffled scientists ever since Dawn was close enough to record them. The spacecraft will end up orbiting at 380 km (235 miles) above the surface. This is similar to the height of the International Space Station. It at around 330 km (205 mi) - 410 km (255 mi) above Earth.

The biggest of these bright spots is in Occator Crater, seen in this color-coded image.


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I haven't seen anything about new discoveries on Ceres, but there is a haiku by Christina Sng published by Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) this week.

And here,
The crystal lair.
Bait for the curious.

Superimposed on an image of the mystery white spots on the dwarf planet.

Last edited by Mona - Astronomy; 12/24/15 03:45 AM.

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Having just said I hadn't heard anything about Dawn recently, I guess I just wasn't paying attention. Mission director Marc Rayman writes:

Quote:
An intrepid interplanetary explorer is now powering its way down through the gravity field of a distant alien world. Soaring on a blue-green beam of high-velocity xenon ions, Dawn is making excellent progress as it spirals closer and closer to Ceres, the first dwarf planet discovered. Meanwhile, scientists are progressing in analyzing the tremendous volume of pictures and other data the probe has already sent to Earth.


Dawn is now spiraling down from its third mapping orbit to its fourth where it will be taking highly detailed photographs of Ceres.


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