It was the first day of the first month of the first year of the new millennium, January 1, 1801. Giuseppe Piazzi, Sicilian astronomer, discovered a new planet which he named Ceres Ferdinandea, which most everybody else shortened to Ceres. Ceres was a Roman agricultural goddess, equivalent to the Greek Demeter. But she was also the patron goddess of Sicily. Ferdinand was the king of Sicily.

You can read a simple account of how planet Ceres was discovered and later lost planet status.

Found on the net, a note from Ceres to Pluto. Both Pluto and Ceres are now named as dwarf planets, but many people don't realize that Ceres was originally listed as a planet and remained so for many years. I have to admit that I can't get too excited about what we call them, unlike some people who're still having hissy fits about Pluto.

Ceres and Pluto have a lot in common:

(1) They have both been classified as planets.
(2) They are now both classified as dwarf planets.
(3) Both were also named as the first of a new type of Solar System body - Ceres as an asteroid, Pluto as a Kuiper Belt object.

This year they have something else in common. They will be visited by NASA spacecraft. Dawn has already done an extensive study of asteroid Vesta and is due at Ceres in April 2015. New Horizons will make its closest approach to Pluto in July.

The Dawn spacecraft has already started taking pictures of its target, dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is also the largest of the asteroids. The snaps aren't just to send to friends and family! The pictures Dawn takes in the coming weeks will be used for navigation purposes in order to get the craft into orbit around Ceres on March 6.

Dawn has already done an extensive study of asteroid Vesta, but when it gets to Ceres, this will be the first visit of a space mission to a dwarf planet. But in July New Horizons will be visiting Pluto, so this year we should learn quite a lot about two different types of dwarf planet.