TORONTO – NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has photographed a bright spot on the dwarf planet Ceres in greater detail than ever before, but it still hasn’t definitively determined what it is.
READ MORE: Hello, Ceres: Dawn spacecraft marks historic first visit to dwarf planet
The bright spot was first spotted as Dawn neared its historic mission — the first to a dwarf planet — last year.
It’s still unknown what is responsible for the spot, but there is a theory.
“Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice,” said Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission from the University of California.
Ceres — a dwarf planet and largest object in the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter — was believed to have water ice beneath its surface, and even water vapour. Scientists theorize that the vapour could be ice volcanoes beneath the surface.
The images were taken on May 3 and 4 from a distance of just 13,600 km as Dawn completed its first mapping orbit. On May 9, the spacecraft started its ion engines that will begin a descent toward the spacecraft’s second mapping orbit. It will begin on June 6.
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