Dawn is at Ceres and one of these days the folks running the project are going to figure out just what in the hell those bright spots are. My guess is ice, but what the hell do I know?
Tag: ceres
Ceres
We Know What Ceres Looks Like
Finally, we can say that we know what the Dwarf Planet Ceres looks like! No longer are we only able to view blurry images from Hubble. Now we can see a clear enough image to actually make out surface features!
Click on the image to read the article from which I stole the pic (sorry about that). This is cool. The Dawn probe will be orbiting Ceres in March, and doing actual research in April How fricken cool is that!?
Ceres
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is approaching Ceres. Ceres is considered a Dwarf Planet as well as an asteroid. Not only “an” asteroid, but the original asteroid. It’s full name is 1 Ceres because it was the first object classified as an asteroid.
Back in 2006 when the whole Pluto-is-not-a-planet fiasco happened there was talk of Ceres being included in the list of planets. It was discovered in 1801 and for a number of years it actually was considered a planet before getting demoted to asteroid. Then in ’06 it was classified a dwarf planet instead of a planet. I felt bad for the little ball of ice. It was like it had been kicked in the teeth twice. I vowed at that time that I would be the first red head to walk on its surface.
How’s that working out for me?
Inside the Red Head's Head 