NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been investigating puzzling bright spot on the dwarf planet Ceres, and recently revealed new images that may solve the mystery.
The new images were taken from a distance of 8,400 miles and show the brightest spots that exist within a crater in the northern hemisphere are actually made up of many smaller dots.
"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, Los Angeles.
The findings provide insight into the shapes and sizes of crates on Ceres' surface, as well as a number of other interesting geological features.
Dawn has now successfully completed its first 15-day mapping orbit around the dwarf planet. On May 9 it began its month-long descent to reach its new mapping orbit scheduled to start June 6. During this close phase Dawn will circle Ceres once about every three days at an altitude of only 2,700 miles, which is three times closer than the distance at which the recent images were taken. In this new phase, the researchers hope the spacecraft will be able to determine whether or not Ceres is active.
"Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct solar system targets. It studied giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015," NASA stated.
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