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Humanity didn’t get any good views of the surface of Ceres until 2015, when NASA’s Dawn mission snapped the first (relatively) close-by images of the dwarf planet. With these, came the revelation that Ceres’ surface is surprisingly diverse in terms of structures and composition. In turn, this pointed to unexpected levels of geological activity brewing unseen below the crust. Ceres, as its classification of a dwarf planet suggests, is very small. So small... that researchers were absolutely convinced that it had cooled down completely all the way to its core and that it was, geologically speaking, a dead world. What...

Last week NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, after a voyage of about eight years, captured incredible video of two bright spots on Ceres. Ceres has an interesting history, labeled for decades a planet, then an asteroid (or minor planet), and most recently a dwarf planet, a category that includes another erstwhile planet, Pluto. Ceres was discovered through the dedication of a Catholic priest, Giuseppe Piazzi (1746-1826), who obtained the best astronomical instruments of his day, and positioned them where they could be used to best effect. When he was 19, Piazzi joined the Theatine Order of clerics, which supported his doctoral studies...

Explanation: Does Ceres have underground pockets of water? Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, was thought to be composed of rock and ice. At the same time, Ceres was known to have unusual bright spots on its surface. These bright spots were clearly imaged during Dawn's exciting approach in 2015. Analyses of Dawn images and spectra indicated that the bright spots arise from the residue of highly-reflective salt water that used to exist on Ceres' surface but evaporated. Recent analysis indicates that some of this water may have originated from deep inside the dwarf planet, indicating Ceres to...

The dwarf planet Ceres – long believed to be a barren space rock – is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity, enabling the Nasa Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface. Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analysed images relayed from the orbiter, captured about 35km (22 miles) from the asteroid. They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and...

"The new images of Occator Crater and the surrounding areas have exceeded expectations, revealing beautiful, alien landscapes," Dawn principal investigator Carol Raymond, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, said in a statement yesterday (July 16).  The $467 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 with a bold goal: to orbit and study the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. Both objects are considered leftovers from the solar system's planet-formation period (hence the mission's name).  Dawn reached Vesta in July 2011 and eyed the object up close for more than a year, finally leaving...

Just released by NASA: striking close-ups of the mysterious world Ceres, taken by a robotic probe turned paparazzi. “These pictures are new to you and new to us too,” says Marc Rayman of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s a wonderful flood of data.” Every 27 hours, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft swoops near the surface of Ceres to grab the close-ups. At its lowest point, the probe is only 22 miles up. In outer space, that’s virtually skimming the ground. The photo shoot started June 9; so far, Dawn has taken “hundreds” of pictures, says Rayman, “exotic alien...

Abstract The asteroid belt contains less than a thousandth of Earth's mass and is radially segregated, with S-types dominating the inner belt and C-types the outer belt. It is generally assumed that the belt formed with far more mass and was later strongly depleted. We show that the present-day asteroid belt is consistent with having formed empty, without any planetesimals between Mars and Jupiter's present-day orbits. This is consistent with models in which drifting dust is concentrated into an isolated annulus of terrestrial planetesimals. Gravitational scattering during terrestrial planet formation causes radial spreading, transporting planetesimals from inside 1 to 1.5...

If you could fly aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft, the surface of dwarf planet Ceres would generally look quite dark, but with notable exceptions. These exceptions are the hundreds of bright areas that stand out in images Dawn has returned. Now, scientists have a better sense of how these reflective areas formed and changed over time—processes indicative of an active, evolving world. ... The first group of bright spots contains the most reflective material on Ceres, which is found on crater floors. The most iconic examples are in Occator Crater, which hosts two prominent bright areas. Cerealia Facula, in the center...

Nestled in the asteroid belt, the dwarf planet Ceres contains water-rich materials that suggest it once boasted a global ocean in its distant past. Now, two new studies from NASA's Dawn mission may reveal traces of an ancient ocean in the crust, with remnants left behind in the muddy mantle beneath.  Scientists used the tug of gravity on NASA's Dawn spacecraft to track gravitational features across the dwarf planet Ceres. Combined with models of the evolution of the icy surfaces, these observations reveal an ocean mostly frozen into a strong but flexible crust, with a mud-rich inner layer that keeps...

Ceres, one of five dwarf planets in the solar system, is also an asteroid — the largest of them, in fact. Formed around 4.5 billion years ago, it sits in the belt of rocky debris that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. ... Among the asteroids, Ceres is special. As a dwarf planet, it got stuck somewhere along the way to becoming a full-grown world. Frozen in this state, Ceres also offers a snapshot of planetary adolescence. Scientists have long wondered whether asteroids had not just water but also organic matter that could have been brought to Earth,...

In a late-day Friday announcement on July 1, 2016, NASA said that the first-ever spacecraft to visit the dwarf planet Pluto – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft – has received the nod to fly onward to an object deeper in the Kuiper Belt, known as 2014 MU69. This object had not even been discovered when New Horizons was launched in 2006. The spacecraft will rendezvous with 2014 MU69 on January 1, 2019. ... In addition to the extension of the New Horizons mission, NASA determined that the Dawn spacecraft should remain at the dwarf planet Ceres, rather than changing course to...

All right, maybe not blinking like a flashlight... but the now-famous “bright spots” on the dwarf planet Ceres have been observed to detectably increase and decrease in brightness, if ever-so-slightly. And what’s particularly interesting is that these observations were made not by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, currently in orbit around Ceres, but from a telescope right here on Earth. Researchers using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument on ESO’s 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla detected “unexpected” changes in the brightness of Ceres during observations in July and August of 2015. Variations in line with Ceres’ 9-hour rotational period—specifically...

Explanation: Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the Solar System's main asteroid belt, with a diameter of about 950 kilometers (590 miles). Ceres is seen here in approximately true color, based on image data from the Dawn spacecraft recorded on May 4, 2015. On that date, Dawn's orbit stood 13,642 kilometers above the surface of the small world. Two of Ceres' famous mysterious bright spots at Oxo crater and Haulani crater are near center and center right of this view. Casting a telltale shadow at the bottom is Ceres' cone-shaped, lonely mountain Ahuna Mons. Presently some 385 kilometers...

It was only a matter of time before someone made a short video with Ceres as the star. The dwarf planet, which has been the focus of the NASA’s Dawn spacecraft of late, lies between Mars and Jupiter. With an average diameter of 590 miles, there has been plenty for Dawn to study since arriving in March 2013. NASA has taken full of advantage of the fact this is the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet – releasing scores of images of Ceres and now a nearly four minute animation that gets up close and personal.

The new views of Enceladus are from the Cassini spacecraft's final close flyby of that moon on Dec. 19, from 4,999 kilometres. They include views of both older, cratered terrain, and younger, furrowed areas of the surface. During previous flybys, Cassini has come as close as within 50 kilometres of the surface, diving through the icy geysers spewing from the moon's surface from what is thought to be a liquid ocean underneath ... While Cassini has left Enceladus, NASA's Dawn spacecraft is just beginning to get more intimate with the dwarf planet Ceres. You may feel as if you're soaring...

Explanation: Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the Solar System's main asteroid belt with a diameter of about 950 kilometers. Exploring Ceres from orbit since March, the Dawn spacecraft's camera has revealed about 130 or so mysterious bright spots, mostly associated with impact craters scattered around the small world's otherwise dark surface. The brightest one is near the center of the 90 kilometer wide Occator Crater, seen in this dramatic false color view combining near-infrared and visible light image data. A study now finds the bright spot's reflected light properties are probably most consistent with a type of...

Observations made by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which has been orbiting the dwarf planet since March, suggest that Ceres' many bright spots could be made primarily of hydrated magnesium sulfates. Here on Earth, magnesium sulfate is sold as Epsom salt, a popular home remedy for a variety of ailments, including sore feet and joint inflammation. Scientists released an amazing new video of Ceres' bright spots in crystal clarity along with their new findings today (Dec. 9). ... These whitish patches are mostly associated with impact craters, the team found, and they're much brighter than Ceres' surface as a whole, which is...

Explanation: What created these bright spots on Ceres? The spots were first noted as the robotic Dawn spacecraft approached Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, in February, with the expectation that the mystery would soon be solved in higher resolution images. However, even after Dawn arrived at Ceres in March, the riddle remained. Surprisingly, although images including the featured composite taken in the last month do resolve many details inside Occator crater, they do not resolve the mystery. Another recent clue is that a faint haze develops over the crater's bright spots. Dawn is scheduled to continue to...

The latest images from Dawn reveal surface features as small as 450 feet across. The two bright spots are now resolved into one very bright area near the center of a crater known as Occator with about eight smaller concentrations to one side surrounding an area where the deposits appear more spread out. Researchers with the Dawn project have not yet weighed in on what the bright material might be or how it got there. "Although our data are now of higher resolution, we're still missing key pieces of information that we really need to know the whole picture," Carol...

Christopher Russell, Professor of Geophysics and Space Physics at UCLA cannot discuss the new high resolution images from Ceres because they have been embargoed by the science journal Nature. ... Russell was able to discuss the issue of Ceres' strange bright spots, appearing prominently in both the large crater known as 'Occator', of which is 60 miles (90 km) across and 2 miles (4 km) deep, and on the slopes of an extremely strange, pyramid-shaped mountain that is 4 miles (6 km) tall. These spots, as described by professor Russell, appear to be a powdery substance that is deposited on...