NASA probe gets close look at Ceres' mysterious bright spots

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has captured the sharpest-yet images of bright spots on the surface of Ceres, a dwarf planet in our solar system's asteroid belt.

|
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the brightest spots on dwarf planet Ceres on June 6, 2015, from an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). Image released June 10, 2015.
|
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of craters in the northern hemisphere of dwarf planet Ceres on June 6, 2015, from an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). Image released June 10, 2015.
|
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
A large crater on the dwarf planet Ceres (lower right) is seen in this photo captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on June 6, 2015.
|
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/ASI/INAF
The same portion of the dwarf planet Ceres' northern hemisphere appears three times, first in black and white (top), then true-color (middle) and finally in infrared to show temperature. Dawn captured these observations of Ceres on May 16, 2015.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has snapped the best-ever images of the dwarf planet Ceres' bright spots, but the strange features still have researchers scratching their heads.

The new photos resolve the' bright spots on Ceres into numerous points of varying sizes. The brightest ones lie within a crater about 55 miles (90 kilometers) wide, researchers said. You can see a video tour of Ceres' strange white spots on Space.com that shows how the odd features have come into focus for Dawn over the last two months.

"The bright spots in this configuration make Ceres unique from anything we've seen before in the solar system. The science team is working to understand their source," Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA said in a statement. "Reflection from ice is the leading candidate in my mind, but the team continues to consider alternate possibilities, such as salt." [More Photos of the Dwarf Planet Ceres]

Dawn captured the images this month from its second mapping orbit of Ceres, an orbit that lies about 2,700 miles (4,400 km) above the surface of the heavily cratered world. But the probe will soon get even closer to the dwarf planet — close enough, perhaps, to take the bright spots' measure at last.

On June 28, Dawn will begin spiraling down to an orbit with an altitude of 900 miles (1,450 km), finally getting there in early August. (It takes Dawn a while to get around because the probe is powered by superefficient but low-thrust ion engines.)

"With closer views from the new orbit and multiple view angles, we soon will be better able to determine the nature of this enigmatic phenomenon," Russell said in the same statement.

The $473 million Dawn mission launched in September 2007 to study Ceres and Vesta, the two largest objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres is about 590 miles (950 km) wide, while Vesta's diameter is 330 miles (530 km).

Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 through September 2012, when it departed for Ceres. The spacecraft arrived at Ceres this past March, in the process becoming the first probe ever to circle two objects beyond the Earth-moon system, as well as the first to orbit a dwarf planet.

The new images from Dawn's second mapping orbit have helped highlight some of the differences between Ceres and Vesta. For example, while both objects have been heavily pockmarked by craters, Ceres bears more evidence of geological activity on its surface, such as flows and landslides, NASA officials said.

Dawn is scheduled to continue studying Ceres through June 2016. The probe will make its final observations of the dwarf planet from an extremely close-in orbit, eyeing Ceres from just 230 miles (375 km) away.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @SpacedotcomFacebook orGoogle+. Originally published on Space.com.

Copyright 2015 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to NASA probe gets close look at Ceres' mysterious bright spots
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0614/NASA-probe-gets-close-look-at-Ceres-mysterious-bright-spots
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe