Ceres Bright Spots Could Be Salt But Dwarf Planet Poses More Mysteries For NASA
After months of speculation, it seems NASA scientists have been able to put a finger gingerly on the mysterious Ceres bright spots. Salt is the most likely contender to explain the spots, Dawn's principal investigator Chris Russell recently guesstimated.
According to CNET, Russel told a gathering of scientists at European Planetary Science Congress that it's not ice but salt. The agency however cannot be sure before Dawn is able to send confirmatory data.
If the theory is confirmed, NASA scientists will now have to explain how salt go to Ceres's surface. While not being able to confirm it at this point, scientists think the salt made its way from subsurface layers of the dwarf planet.
Data from Dawn continues to surprise scientists who are working to solve other mysteries including craters and a tall mountain with bright slopes, which could also be caused by salt deposits. The crates on Ceres are unlike those on Earth or Vesta.
"The irregular shapes of craters on Ceres are especially interesting, resembling craters we see on Saturn's icy moon Rhea. They are very different from the bowl-shaped craters on Vesta," Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator said in a press release.
Another yet-to-be-explained observation described at the congress was detection of energetic electrons from interaction between the dwarf planet and Sun."Ceres continues to amaze, yet puzzle us, as we examine our multitude of images, spectra and now energetic particle bursts," said Russell said.
