Two strange, bright flashes on the surface of dwarf planet
Ceres may have different origins, according to new infrared images released by
NASA..
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spied many of the bright spots
years ago, but the observations from NASA's Dawn spacecraft ,
which began looping around Ceres on 6 March are the first taken at close range.. The images were released on 13 April in Vienna at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union
which began looping around Ceres on 6 March are the first taken at close range.. The images were released on 13 April in Vienna at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union
Scientists say that the bright spots might be related to ice
exposed at the bottom of impact craters or some type of active geological
features. The areas glimmer tantalizingly in a new full-colour map of Ceres
that was obtained in February, but not released until the conference. The map
uses false colours to tease out subtle differences on the otherwise dark
surface of Ceres first idea of what the surface looks like,” said Martin
Hoffmann, a Dawn scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System
Research in Göttingen, Germany
The images, captured by the Dawn probe from 28,000 miles (45,000km) away, show that a pair of mysterious spots on the dwarf planet have different thermal properties. The images were revealed as part of the first colour map of Ceres, showing variations in surface materials, and revealing the diverse processes that helped shape it, 'This dwarf planet was not just an inert rock throughout its history. It was active, with processes that resulted in different materials in different regions,' said Chris Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles. The 'alien' spots on the surface, named feature 1 and feature 5, show up in visible light images as bright flashes in comparison to the rest of Ceres's surface.In infrared, region 1 is cooler than rest of surface, but 5 is located in a region that is similar in temperature to surroundings..
Spot 1 seems darker than its surroundings in images from Dawn's infrared spectrometer, said Federico Tosi, a Dawn scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. This suggests that the area is cooler than the rest of the dwarf planet's surface, supporting the theory that the spot is made of ice. But for some reason, spot 5 — the brightest feature seen on Ceres — does not show up in the infrared images. “One possibility is that we still don’t have enough resolution to see it in the proper way,” said Tosi
The images, captured by the Dawn probe from 28,000 miles (45,000km) away, show that a pair of mysterious spots on the dwarf planet have different thermal properties. The images were revealed as part of the first colour map of Ceres, showing variations in surface materials, and revealing the diverse processes that helped shape it, 'This dwarf planet was not just an inert rock throughout its history. It was active, with processes that resulted in different materials in different regions,' said Chris Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles. The 'alien' spots on the surface, named feature 1 and feature 5, show up in visible light images as bright flashes in comparison to the rest of Ceres's surface.In infrared, region 1 is cooler than rest of surface, but 5 is located in a region that is similar in temperature to surroundings..Spot 1 seems darker than its surroundings in images from Dawn's infrared spectrometer, said Federico Tosi, a Dawn scientist at the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. This suggests that the area is cooler than the rest of the dwarf planet's surface, supporting the theory that the spot is made of ice. But for some reason, spot 5 — the brightest feature seen on Ceres — does not show up in the infrared images. “One possibility is that we still don’t have enough resolution to see it in the proper way,” said Tosi
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