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A Closer Look At Mystery Spots On Dwarf Planet Ceres

posted by on Tuesday March 03 2015, @05:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the probably-alien-mirror dept.

dx3bydt3 writes:

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."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by bucc5062 on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:40PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Tuesday March 03 2015, @08:40PM (#152737)

    See, I'm going with this explanation. All of these other hypotheses are too complicated. Geysers? Need heat/water and where did it all come from and why only at that one spot. Impact material? Only in that spot and remaining visible for years and is there enough ice around to create the effect?

    It's an alien artifact. The pisser is that the moment NASA gets clear enough resolution they will start to deny it is artificial, they will doctor photos to "prove" it is just a natural formation and secretly ensure no more probes can study the mini planet. Manned mission, bah! The last thing they want

    /wink

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @09:10PM (#152748)

    For the doubters. [xkcd.com]

    -- gewg_