Dawn Uncovers More Bright Spots, Possible Volcanic Activity, on Ceres
As NASA's Dawn spacecraft draws closer to the dwarf Ceres located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, another bright spot has revealed itself.
Images captured by the spacecraft have revealed the existence of a second bright spot in the vicinity of the first one discovered earlier. While NASA predicts the images could point to volcanic activity, it has not confirmed any finding, given the low resolution of images. Dawn is said to be 29,000 miles from Ceres and is expected to enter into an orbit around it on March 6, Fox News reports.
"Ceres bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin. This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations," Dawn's principal investigator Chris Russell in a NASA news release.
"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us," said Andreas Nathues, at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.
Dawn has earlier captured images of Vesta, the second most massive body after Ceres in the asteroid belt. It will have 16 months to capture high resolution images of Ceres.
