NASA's Dawn spacecraft has snapped the best-ever images of the dwarf planet Ceres' bright spots, but the strange features still have researchers scratching their heads.
Dawn is a space probe launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres, the largest body in the Asteroid Belt. It is currently in orbit about its second target, the dwarf planet Ceres.
Dawn uses an ion propulsion system and arrive at Ceres on March 5, 2015 when the unidentified bright spots were first detected (see below video).
New images of dwarf planet Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, show the cratered surface of this mysterious world in sharper detail than ever before. These are among the first snapshots from Dawn's second mapping orbit, which is 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above Ceres.
Mysterious bright spots on Ceres taken by the Dawn spaceprobe from a distance of 2,700 miles on June 6, 2015 - NASA-JPL (Click Image To Enlarge)
The new photos resolve the' bright spots on Ceres into numerous points of varying sizes. The spots consist of many individual bright points of differing sizes, with a central cluster. So far, scientists have found no obvious explanation for their observed locations or brightness levels.
The brightest ones lie within a crater about 55 miles (90 kilometers) wide, researchers said. You can see a video tour of Ceres' strange white spots on Space.com that shows how the odd features have come into focus for Dawn over the last two months. Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission based at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.
"The bright spots in this configuration make Ceres unique from anything we've seen before in the solar system. The science team is working to understand their source. Reflection from ice is the leading candidate in my mind, but the team continues to consider alternate possibilities, such as salt. With closer views from the new orbit and multiple view angles, we soon will be better able to determine the nature of this enigmatic phenomenon."
Numerous other features on Ceres intrigue scientists as they contrast this world with others, including protoplanet Vesta, which Dawn visited for 14 months in 2011 and 2012. Craters abound on both bodies, but Ceres appears to have had more activity on its surface, with evidence of flows, landslides and collapsed structures.
Additionally, new images from Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) show a portion of Ceres' cratered northern hemisphere, taken on May 16, including a true-color view and a temperature image. The temperature image is derived from data in the infrared light range. This instrument is also important in determining the nature of the bright spots.
Having arrived in its current orbit on June 3, Dawn will observe the dwarf planet from 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) above its surface until June 28. In orbits of about three days each, the spacecraft will conduct intensive observations of Ceres. It will then move toward its next orbit of altitude 900 miles (1,450 kilometers), arriving in early August.
On March 6, 2015, Dawn made history as the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct extraterrestrial targets. At its previous target, Vesta, Dawn took tens of thousands of images and made many observations about the body's composition and other properties.
Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA said in a statement.
"The bright spots in this configuration make Ceres unique from anything we've seen before in the solar system. The science team is working to understand their source. Reflection from ice is the leading candidate in my mind, but the team continues to consider alternate possibilities, such as salt." [More Photos of the Dwarf Planet Ceres]
Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.
Courtesy of an article dated June 11, 2015 appearing in Space.com and an article dated March 26, 2015 appearing in Space.com
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