New images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, taken nearly 46,000 km from Ceres, show two mysterious bright spots on the surface of the dwarf planet.
This image was taken by the Dawn space probe of dwarf planet Ceres on February 19 from a distance of nearly 46,000 km. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.
The brightest of the two spots was first detected in the images taken by the spacecraft on January 13, 2015, from a distance of 383,000 km.
The latest images reveal that the spot is actually two bright spots, lying next to each other in the same crater basin.
“Ceres’ bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin,” said Dawn mission scientist Dr Chris Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles.
“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.”
According to Dr Russell and his colleagues, Dawn will be gently captured into orbit around Ceres on March 6, 2015.
As the spacecraft delivers better images and other data, they will be investigating the nature and composition of the dwarf planet, including the nature of the craters and bright spots that are coming into focus.
“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,” said Dr Andreas Nathues from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany.
“This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us.”
Dawn has already delivered more than 30,000 images and many insights about Vesta, the second most massive body in the asteroid belt.
The space probe orbited Vesta, which has an average diameter of 525 km, from 2011 to 2012.
Thanks to its ion propulsion system, Dawn is the first spacecraft ever targeted to orbit two deep-space destinations.
