{"id":19427,"date":"2016-03-22T21:37:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T13:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/dwarf-planet-ceres-mystery-bright-spots-get-their-close-up-from-dawn-probe\/"},"modified":"2016-03-22T21:37:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T13:37:55","slug":"dwarf-planet-ceres-mystery-bright-spots-get-their-close-up-from-dawn-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/dwarf-planet-ceres-mystery-bright-spots-get-their-close-up-from-dawn-probe\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwarf planet Ceres\u2019 mystery bright spots get their close-up from Dawn probe"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_238817\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-238817\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-238817\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-occator-630x444.jpg\" alt=\"Occator Crater on Ceres\" width=\"630\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-occator-630x444.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-occator-768x541.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-occator.jpg 1232w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-238817\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The bright central spots near the center of Occator Crater are shown in enhanced color in this view from NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft. Such views can be used to highlight subtle color differences on Ceres\u2019 surface. The view combines high-resolution images of Occator from February with lower-resolution color data acquired in September 2015. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA \/ PSI \/ LPI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The scientists behind NASA\u2019s Dawn mission today showed off their latest, greatest pictures of the dwarf&nbsp;planet Ceres, including close-up views of curious bright spots on the surface.<\/p>\n<p>The car-sized Dawn spacecraft has been circling Ceres, the biggest mini-world in the solar system\u2019s asteroid belt, for just more than a year.&nbsp;In Dawn\u2019s distant&nbsp;views, the bright spots looked like alien headlights.&nbsp;The latest images, captured from a height of just 240 miles, reveal&nbsp;that the brightest spot is a fractured dome sticking up from 57-mile-wide Occator Crater.<\/p>\n<p>Other bright areas appear to be highly reflective deposits, crisscrossed by linear features and fractures.<\/p>\n<p>Dawn\u2019s scientists discussed their latest data today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore Dawn began its intensive observations of Ceres last year, Occator Crater looked to be one large bright area. Now, with the latest close views, we can see complex features that provide new mysteries to investigate,\u201d Ralf Jaumann, a planetary scientist at the German Aerospace Center, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>He said \u201cthe intricate geometry of the crater interior suggests geologic activity in the recent past, but we will need to complete detailed geologic mapping of the crater in order to test hypotheses for its formation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Unveiling Ceres\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nI-w94MrsfY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Last December,&nbsp;Dawn\u2019s scientists said they were leaning toward the view that the bright areas marked places where salty water ice was exposed on the surface, due to cosmic impacts or volcanic activity.<\/p>\n<p>In this scenario, the ice turns into vapor through a&nbsp;process known as sublimation, leaving the bright salt behind. What kind of salt? Scientists suspect it\u2019s mainly a type of hydrated magnesium sulfate known as hexahydrite. Similar bright patches and streaks have been spotted in other craters, including Haulani Crater and Oxo Crater.<\/p>\n<p>Fresh readings from Dawn\u2019s Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector, or GRaND, support the view that deposits of water ice lie beneath the surface, particularly in the polar regions of the 590-mile-wide world. Additional data gathered during Dawn\u2019s close-in orbits should help tell the tale definitively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur analyses will test a longstanding prediction that water ice can survive just beneath Ceres\u2019 cold, high-latitude surface for billions of years,\u201d said the Planetary Science Institute\u2019s Tom Prettyman, who heads the GRaND research team.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_238862\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-238862\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-238862\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-ceres2-630x355.jpg\" alt=\"Neutron readings on Ceres\" width=\"630\" height=\"355\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-ceres2-630x355.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-ceres2-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/160322-ceres2.jpg 1066w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-238862\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This color-coded map shows neutron distribution data from Dawn\u2019s GRaND instrument. Blue denotes relatively low neutron counts, and red denotes relatively high counts. Lower neutron counts near the north pole suggest the presence of water ice within about a yard of the surface at high latitudes. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ ASI \/INAF)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dawn was launched in 2007 and spent 14 months mapping the asteroid Vesta before moving on to Ceres. The spacecraft is&nbsp;due to orbit Ceres indefinitely, even after its primary mission ends in June \u2013 and the data analysis is likely to continue for months and years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists say Ceres and Vesta are worthy of study because they preserve material from the beginnings of the solar system. Some have even suggested that Ceres\u2019 subsurface could have supported life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow that we can see Ceres\u2019 enigmatic bright spots, surface minerals and morphology in high resolution, we\u2019re busy working to figure out what processes shaped this unique dwarf planet,\u201d deputy principal investigator Carol Raymond, who\u2019s based&nbsp;at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in today\u2019s news release. \u201cBy comparing Ceres with Vesta, we\u2019ll glean new insights about the early solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The bright central spots near the center of Occator Crater are shown in enhanced color in this view from NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft. Such views can be used to highlight subtle color differences on Ceres\u2019 surface. The view combines high-resolution images of Occator from February with lower-resolution color data acquired in September 2015. (Credit: NASA \/ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1519,2838,5133,2840,190],"class_list":["post-19427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asteroids","tag-ceres","tag-dawn-probe","tag-dwarf-planets","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}