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JPL has published an even closer look at the bright spots on Ceres.
Apart from a closer look, there isn't much new information. While looking at the picture though, I was having trouble with the perspective on the craters. If I invert/negative the image, the spots are of course black, but the craters look like craters. What gives?
"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," Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission from the University of California, Los Angeles, said recently.
Dawn is currently about 7,200 km from the surface of Ceres. On December 8th, it will be 375 km from the surface.
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Ceres Bright Spots Seen Closer Than Ever
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In the war of wits, he's unarmed.
(Score: 1) by canopic jug on Friday May 22 2015, @11:16AM
Aren't some asteroids thought to be partially metal? Some largish bits could have been sheared or polished during the formation of the crater and certainly wouldn't oxidize out there, staying just as shiny as when the crater was first blasted.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nyder on Friday May 22 2015, @12:43PM
I think this might be more likely, because if ice was able to survive in that crater, why haven't we spotted any other in the other craters? Would think there would be more, but what do I know?
What I do know is I can't wait to find out, can't wait for some of these new probes & stuff to get to their locations. Think how much we could learn if we invested even 1/8th of the military budget to the space/science communities.
(Score: 4, Informative) by sudo rm -rf on Friday May 22 2015, @01:16PM
We will hopefully soon find out, DAWN has a spectrometer [nasa.gov] on board. Also there are apparently more craters with bright spots, as can be seen in this animated gif [nasa.gov] from May 11th. I think it is amazing that every single celestial body we start to take a closer look at seems to have unthought-of features.
(Score: 2) by TK on Friday May 22 2015, @03:12PM
That gif is incredible. I love living in the future.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday May 22 2015, @09:51PM
I'm going with tinfoil: Ceres, our first conspiracy theorist dwarf planet!!