Dawn Mission Reveals More Detail in Mysterious Ceres

From its orbital perch 2,700 miles above Ceres, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft returned new images of the dwarf planet showing more even more small bright spots inside a 55-mile crater.

At least eight bright areas now have been found next to a large white region glinting inside the crater. Scientists suspect they are seeing some kind of highly reflective material, such as ice or salt, but there are other options as well, like geysers, volcanoes or rock.

The new images, which were taken on June 9 and released today (June 22), also show that Ceres has a steep, three-mile high mountain rising from the surface in an area that is otherwise relatively smooth and flat.

Several craters, many with central peaks, have been discovered, along with landslides, flows and collapsed structures that are evidence of past surface activity.

In August, Dawn is scheduled to make more observations of Ceres from a lower orbit just 900 miles above the surface.

From Discovery News