Unknown bright spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres

[dragon]

Hum wonder what it could be.

NASA Finds Mysterious Bright Spot on Dwarf Planet Ceres: What Is It?
by Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | January 23, 2015 08:26am ET
A mysterious white spot can be seen in the newest images from NASA's Dawn space telescope, which is rapidly approaching the dwarf planet.
[Pin It] A mysterious white spot can be seen in the newest images from NASA's Dawn space telescope, which is rapidly approaching the dwarf planet.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI
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A strange, flickering white blotch found on the dwarf planet Ceres by a NASA spacecraft has scientists scratching their heads.

The white spot on Ceres in a series of new photos taken on Jan. 13 by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which is rapidly approaching the round dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But when the initial photo release on Monday (Jan. 19), the Dawn scientists gave no indication of what the white dot might be.

"Yes, we can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery," Marc Rayman, mission director and chief engineer for the Dawn mission, told Space.com in an email. [Photos of Dwarf Planet Ceres]

The new images show areas of light and dark on the face of Ceres, which indicate surface features like craters. But at the moment, none of the specific features can be resolved, including the white spot.

"We do not know what the white spot is, but it's certainly intriguing," Rayman said. "In fact, it makes you want to send a spacecraft there to find out, and of course that is exactly what we are doing! So as Dawn brings Ceres into sharper focus, we will be able to see with exquisite detail what [the white spot] is."

Ceres is a unique object in our solar system. It is the largest object in the asteroid belt and is classified as an asteroid. It is simultaneously classified as a dwarf planet, and at 590 miles across (950 kilometers, or about the size of Texas), Ceres is the smallest known dwarf planet in the solar system.

The $466 million Dawn spacecraft is set to enter into orbit around Ceres on March 6. Dawn left Earth in 2007 and in the summer of 2011, it made a year-long pit stop at the asteroid Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt.

While Vesta shared many properties with our solar system's inner planets, scientists with the Dawn mission suspect that Ceres has more in common with the outer most planets. 25 percent of Ceres' mass is thought to be composed of water, which would mean the space rock contains even more fresh water than Earth. Scientists have observed water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Ceres, which may erupt from volcano-like ice geysers.

The mysterious white spot captured by the Dawn probe is one more curious feature of this already intriguing object.

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[Borgholio]

And in other news, cylindrical objects have been spotted heading for Earth. Their point of origin appears to be the mysterious white spot on Ceres, which some believe to be the residue of multiple large rocket launches...

[madd0ct0r]

the chances of that would be a million to one!

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yet still they came....

Now that's done, I'm rather curious about this. Maybe it's the remains of an impactor.

[Borgholio]

Could Ceres be big enough for volcanoes or geysers?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Possible but unlikely. It's a rocky body, and given how small it is it's core would have cooled long ago.

[SpottedKitty]

Interesting. It's likely to have a pretty boring explanation, though, as simply one of the more recent craters on the surface. Similar things have been seen on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The fresh rock and ice kicked up by an impact is less weathered by interplanetary dust, so it's whiter and brighter than most of its surroundings. In fact, some of that material might be only a few hundred million years old.

(And yes, that does count as "recent" and "fresh" in astronomical terms.)

[Guardsman Bass]

Same. I think it's a more recent crater from an impact that punched through to ice beneath the surface, exposing it to sunlight.

[SpottedKitty]

We'll maybe find out more in the next week or two, that's the point where the picture quality is expected to improve on what we can see from Hubble. And it's getting better all the time, only a few months until Dawn goes into orbit.

[Borgholio]

We'll maybe find out more in the next week or two, that's the point where the picture quality is expected to improve on what we can see from Hubble. And it's getting better all the time, only a few months until Dawn goes into orbit.

Around the same time that New Horizons will be approaching the orbit of Pluto. Next few months are going to be interesting

[Borgholio]

Dawn has entered orbit of Ceres. Now we can find out what those bright spots are.

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/na ... PnaYOGHjXI

[Iroscato]

Excellent work. Let 2015 be known as the year of the dwarf planets. I can't wait for New Horizons to reach Pluto as well

[Borgholio]

I can't wait for New Horizons to reach Pluto as well

Yes that's going to be even more exciting. Even with Hubble, we've never gotten a clear view of Pluto's surface. I am looking forward to the first high-res pics transmitted back from the probe.

[dragon]

Sorry for the Necro but new pics. Highly reflective materials so could still be an alien spacecraft crashed landed. Iknow it's just ice but that's so not as interesting as possible aliens.

Earlier this month we discovered that Ceres’ pair of mysterious bright spots were, in fact, not two—they were many, many more. Now, we’ve got the closest look yet of the spots thanks to NASA’s Dawn mission.

This image, captured on May 16th, show a group of the brightest spots on the dwarf planet. Taken from a distance of 4,500 miles, each pixel represents 2,250 feet (0.4 miles). “Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice,” said Christopher Russell, one of the Dawn mission researchers, recently. All that said, scientists still don’t really know what the spots are made of. We’re still gonna need to get closer to find out. [NASA]

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[madd0ct0r]

That's an interesting trace on the bottom right of the picture.

[LaCroix]

It is continued across the whole body, up to the left, if you look closely. Maybe a crack in the crust when there was a really big impact?

[Borgholio]

That's an interesting trace on the bottom right of the picture.

Why is it that part of me is thinking a crash landing of some kind of spacecraft?

[madd0ct0r]

I was thinking more fluid, but Lacroix's observation makes it older then that crater, so not the same event.