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The Dawn space probe will enter orbit of the dwarf planet Ceres this Friday. Once in orbit it will be at a separation distance of 40,000km. Years ago, Hubble photos revealed a curious bright patch on Ceres. The Dawn probe has been capturing increasingly clearer images as it approaches Ceres and the spots remain mysterious. Rather than a large lighter patch, the resulting photos reveal multiple spots, smaller and brighter than expected.
From a recent BBC article:
"These spots were extremely surprising and they have been puzzling to everyone who has seen them," the Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory researcher told reporters.
"They show up in a 92km-wide crater that's about 19 degrees North latitude. The spot in the centre is about twice as bright as the spot on the side of the crater, and as yet it has not been resolved, meaning it is smaller than the 4km pixel size [of the images].
By December it will have reached a final orbit of just 380km, from that distance the images it captures will resolve much finer detail, and hopefully will reveal more about these odd reflective areas.
According to a Scientific American article, "No one knows what the bright spots are but guesses abound: Perhaps they are scars from recent impacts or minerals deposited by active geysers or water ice erupted by “cryovolcanoes”—or something even wilder."
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:51PM
TFS also mentions geysers.
Isn't Ceres just too small (590 miles) to generate enough internal pressure and heat to maintain any kind of geysers?
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:27PM
Keep into account that the Ceres' surface gravity is 0.029g: you won't need much of a pressure to create geysers.
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