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Saturday 24 January 2015

Ceres: NASA Finds Mysterious White Spot On Dwarf Planet

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Ceres- A Dwarf Planet located at Asteroid belt (Click Image to Download)

NASA scientists have been stymied by the discovery of a large, bright white spot on the dwarf planet Ceres, which has been revealed in images from the Dawn spacecraft, set to soon arrive at the unusual celestial object.

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The white spot appeared in a series of photographs of Ceres taken on January 13, according to Space.com. Though the images were released on January 19, just what has caused the anomaly on the dwarf planet, which is located between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt, remains undetermined, according to mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman.

“Yes, we can confirm that it is something on Ceres that reflects more sunlight, but what that is remains a mystery,” he said.

The Dawn spacecraft marks the first mission to Ceres, and is set to arrive at the dwarf planet in March of this year. The spacecraft has traveled 3.1 billion miles over the last seven years, according to Popular Science, pushed toward the asteroid belt at just 450 mph by a set of ion thrusters.

Scientists know precious little about Ceres, which has a diameter of 590 miles and a surface area four times larger than the state of Texas. Astronomers have previously observed water vapor plumes erupting off Ceres, thought to be the product of ice geysers referred to as “cryovolcanos.” Though much of its mass is believed to be composed of water, some speculate that the Dawn mission will determine that the dwarf planet possesses a rocky, barren surface.

Although it is unclear what Dawn will find when it reaches the dwarf planet, the spacecraft already has a mystery to solve in the form of Ceres’ unusual white spot.

Source: www.inquisitr.com

7 comments:

  1. I saw that on one of the videos; it'll be interesting to see what it is. It's curious how planets always seem to have a mark unique to each planet; a bit like a personality or "birth mark."

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  2. Something less... In a couple of months Dawn will be orbiting Ceres and it will become obvious what the white spot is.

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  3. By the way i invite You to my space as well ,i am Alien ;) Happy weekend

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  4. It may be a big crater by some meteorite impact or something else.
    Each planet have their unique back story which makes it unique.
    We will get answer soon and back story of this planet.

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