This image taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
New images of dwarf planet Ceres show oddly shaped mountains, collapsed crater walls, long surface cracks and alternately rocky and smooth terrain, as if something flowed across a large swath of its surface. It also shows the bright spots in more depth and detail than ever.
The Dawn spacecraft is now orbiting at an altitude of about 900 miles from the surface of Ceres — that’s three times closer than it was at its last orbit. That means the images produced are three times sharper than the best images the team had before, at a distance of 2,700 miles. (See the piece we wrote on the Dawn mission and team in June from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.)
Think about it this way. Imagine Ceres as a soccer ball slightly more than three feet away. That’s what the dwarf planet looked like from the perspective of Dawn’s previous orbit. Now it’s more like looking at a soccer ball 13 inches away.
“Everything we’re seeing, we’re seeing in greater detail,” said Dawn team mission director Marc Rayman. He pointed out what he called “complex, intriguing geology”: cone-shaped features, dark cracks in the surface, sharp crater cliffs and debris that’s possibly a result of landslides.
The picture above, for example, shows more bright spots within the crater and a dusting of spots above and around it.
“I think this is the best picture Dawn has taken of Ceres in it’s eight-year long planetary odyssey,” Rayman said. “I’m truly mesmerized by the detail in it.”
Still, the new images don’t yet answer the biggest questions about Ceres: the specifics of its composition, whether it could host microbial life and the source of the mysterious bright spots.
This image, taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, shows a portion of Ceres at mid-latitudes from an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers). The image, with a resolution of 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel, was taken on August 21, 2015. Image by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
In those regards, thinking hasn’t much changed, Rayman said. Ingredients necessary for life still appear to exist there, and the bright spots are likely ice or evaporated ice. But the specific nature of the spots remains unclear.
“There’s some process, whether it’s exposing subsurface material, or some chemical process that’s occurring, that’s making something turn bright over time,” Rayman said. “But I really don’t know. And that’s part of what’s so exciting about going there.
Quick note: the bright spots are not a source of light; they represent regions with a higher reflectivity that reflect more sunlight than surrounding surface areas.
In December, Dawn will drop to its closest altitude. And watching Ceres from that distance will be like holding the soccer ball 3.5 inches from your face.
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