Mysterious Bright Spot on Ceres Has a Dimmer Companion

Posted on February 26, 2015

6-27NASA's Dawn spacecraft has released its latest image of Ceres. The resolution of the images continues to improve as the spacecraft gets closer to the dwarf planet. The latest image reveals that the mysterious bright spot on Ceres has a dimmer companion.

The latest images was taken on February 19 at a distance of 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers). The image shows two bright spots on the surface of Ceres. Astronomers say this could indicate a volcano-like origin of the spots.

Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, says in a statement, "Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations."

Dwan will enter into orbit around Ceres around March 6th. It will return better and better views of Ceres over the next 16 months. Astronomers hope to get a better detailed view of the bright spots and other features on the planet as Dawn orbits Ceres.

Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute, says, "The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us."

You can view a larger version of the above image here.



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