After more than a dozen years of head-scratching we finally have our first really good look at the weird bright spot on Ceres, thanks to NASA’s Dawn spacecraft and its low-altitude mapping orbit (aka LAMO) around the dwarf planet. Appearing from 240 miles up as a dome covered in cracks and rising from the surrounding darker…
Tag: bright spot
Ceres’ Strange Bright Spots are Almost Certainly Reflective Material
Ever since it was first spotted by Hubble in 2003, the nature of the curious bright spot on Ceres has been an intriguing mystery for scientists. And even as NASA’s Dawn spacecraft approached the dwarf planet earlier this year the bright spot continued to mystify, gradually resolving into first two and then multiple, separate spots as Dawn…
Lights in the Dark 