Two unidentified promising regions have been spotted on the dwarf planet Ceres , located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter . And now it turns out that the mystery spots are not likewise .
Since March , NASA ’s Dawn spacecrafthas been orbiting Ceres , which scientist remember is 25 percentage water ice by mass . research worker analyzing images taken during Dawn ’s initial approach ( before being captured into orbit ) have just released a fresh enhanced - color single-valued function that reveals the diversity of the surface . As expect , its surface is heavy cratered — but there are fewer large craters than we thought .
Variation ( however elusive ) in morphology and color across Ceres ’ surface suggest that it was once an active body . " This gnome major planet was not just an inert rock-and-roll throughout its history . It was active , with processes that resulted in different material in different regions,”Chris Russell from the University of California , Los Angeles , says in anews sacking . “ We are lead off to capture that diversity in our color epitome . ”
Years ago , researchers using NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope identified several bright region on Ceres ’ surface , and Dawn is now providing a much cheeseparing look . While the informant of the lustrous spots are still unsung , Dawn ’s visible and infrared mapping mass spectrometer ( VIR ) has been probe the relative temperature of the characteristic on Ceres ’ control surface . Preliminary examination suggests that different bright region on the control surface are behaving differently , according toFederico Tosi of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysicsin Rome .
A pair of neighboring spots — by far the brightest visible marks on the planetary body — are located in a crater that ’s 92 kilometer ( 57 geographical mile ) wide . They ’re situated in a area labeled “ 5 ” ( visualize at the top , second dustup ) that ’s similar in temperature to its surroundings . There ’s a different bright feature that jibe to a region label “ 1 ” ( pictured at the top , first row ) that ’s coolheaded than the rest of the dwarf planet ’s surface .
While both spot 1 and 5 show up in visible light images , the latter does n’t show up in infrared images . ( The infrared image are the rightmost in the two rows depict at the top . ) " pip number five shows no distinct thermic behavior,“Tosi tells New Scientist . It ’s possible that they just do n’t have enough resolution yet , Nature explains .
They hope to have more item after Dawn begin its first intensive skill stage , later this month , at a length of 13,500 km ( 8,400 miles ) from the surface . The spacecraft will be studying Ceres through June 2016 .
The determination were present at the2015 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Unionin Vienna this calendar week .
Images : NASA / JPL - Caltech / UCLA / ASI / INAF(top),NASA / JPL - Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA(middle )
