Bright spots seen on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres that have been sparking scientists' interest may have volcanic origin.
The fascinating features were revealed by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which will be captured into orbit around the object in the upcoming months. The researchers noticed a bright spot that has been noticeable in previous images is close to another bright region.
"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," said Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, based at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dawn will enter into orbit around Ceres on March 6, revealing even more details about the mysterious dwarf planet and revealing the exact source of these bright spots.
"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, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany.
Dawn visited the asteroid Vesta from 2011 to 2012, and took over 30,000 images of the body as well as other revealing measurements. This allowed the scientists to gain a better understanding of the object's composition and geological history, now researchers hope the prolific craft will do the same for 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
