Color map suggests a once-active Ceres

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Color map suggests a once-active Ceres
Apr 13, 2015
by Deborah Byrd in » Science Wire, Space

Plus … what infrared data show about the Ceres bright spots.

Information about the dwarf planet Ceres is slowly coming out, since NASA’s Dawn spacecraft began orbiting this tiny world on March 6. This new color map reveals the diversity of the Ceres’ surface and suggest Ceres was once a more active world than it is today. That’s according to Dawn researchers who spoke at the 2015 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna today (April 13, 2015).

Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at UCLA, said in a statement:

This dwarf planet was not just an inert rock throughout its history. It was active, with processes that resulted in different materials in different regions. We are beginning to capture that diversity in our color images.

The researchers also said that, while Ceres’ surface is heavily cratered, as expected, it appears to have fewer large craters than scientists anticipated

NASA researchers have also been scrutinizing the puzzling bright spots on Ceres’ surface.

Infrared data from Dawn has revealed that not all of Ceres’ bright spots are alike. The closest-yet images, taken from 45,000 kilometers away, suggest that at least two of the spots look different from one another when seen in infrared wavelengths. Read more about the infrared findings about the bright spots from Nature. http://www.nature.com/news/mystery-of-ceres-bright-spots-grows-1.17313

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