Dawn space probe at Ceres

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NASA's probe Dawn has entered orbit around Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt and oldest known "dwarf planet". The probe has been sending photos for some time, including several showing a couple of very bright spots at the bottom of a large crater.

More details, as ever, in a BBC News article.

[comrade_general]

It's the flash of them taking pictures of our probe!

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Some news from Ceres too (see BBC article) - various images of the surface, including a Mercator projection of the entire surface in exaggerated colour. There's also more information on the bright spots, including the fact that different spots show different thermal behaviour.

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Another BBC article with news and pictures from Ceres. The nature of the previously-reported bright spots remains a mystery, as does the origin of a 6 km-high mountain.

[comrade_general]

It's the flash of them taking pictures of our probe!

[Glaurung]

More news from Ceres, via a BBC article:

- The very bright spots are parts of a layer of salty ice, exposed by recent meteorite impacts (Sorry, CG).
- There is some evidence that Ceres might have originated considerably further from the Sun, with its orbit moving inwards later on.

Brits will appreciate that one of the craters on Ceres has been named Oxo; disappointingly, there don't seem to be any surface features named Bovril or Marmite.

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Another BBC article, with more pictures. The bright spots are now shown in much more detail, so they're a lot less spot-like and much more like actual terrain (Sorry, CG). There's also some evidence of water or other hydrogen-containing compounds in the surface, especially near the poles.

[comrade_general]

ALIENS!