Ceres Displays Unexpected Flare-ups in Brightness to Ground-Based Survey

Bright reflective material in Ceres' Occator crater, imaged by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in Sept .2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA. — *Reflective material in Ceres’ 90-km-wide Occator crater, imaged by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft in Sept .2015. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.*

Researchers using the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument on ESO’s 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla have detected “unexpected” changes in the brightness of Ceres during observations made in July and August of 2015. Variations in line with Ceres’ 9-hour rotational period were expected, but other fluctuations in brightness were also found that indicate albedo changes on a daily, diurnal basis.

Long story short: Ceres is slowly “blinking.”

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