Posted on 07/21/2015 7:27:36 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“At noontime, if you look at a glancing angle, you can see what seems to be haze,” said Christopher Russell, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Dawn principal investigator. “It comes back in a regular pattern.”
According to Russell, who was speaking at a NASA exploration meeting at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., the haze covers about half of the crater and reaches as far as the rim.
So far, scientists have theorized that the bright spots could be concentrations of minerals or salts. Or they might be icy deposits; potentially evidence for cryovolcanism.
The spacecraft hasn’t yet been able to properly analyze the spots, but the discovery of haze above a crater filled with bright dots could indicate something is outgassing into space — possibly sublimating water ice.
In 2014, the now-defunct Herschel infrared space telescope uncovered “unequivocal” evidence of water vapor at Ceres. However, since that discovery (and with the arrival of Dawn), the European observatory’s detection has not been confirmed. But with the discovery of “haze” above Occator crater, perhaps we may be hot on the trail as to the nature of these mysterious bright patches and the potential source of this elusive water vapor.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
The bright spots on Ceres are a question that simply has to be answered.
Someone will send a robot there and get the answer. If not us, someone else.
If anyone other than us gets there first, they will claim what’s there for themselves.
If we get there first, we’ll claim it “for all mankind,” or some equally stupid concept.
Okay, it’s overdone. But, Ceres?
But ceres?
And hugh.
CC
Time to take a shower if it really is ceres and hugh.
Bigfoot scat?
It seems “they” are saying the roughly circular feature that holds the bright spots is a depression (crater). It appears more like a bulge.
Probably gold.
Particle-Ion charged atmosphere containment system for asteroid mining.
The bright spots are interesting, but the two straight black lines at the edge of the center bright spot are even more so...
Aliens need a visit from CARB to set up smog abatement programs. Yearly vehicle tests to start with.....
Is that noontime on earth? Or does Ceres have a noon? How do they figure that?
Disco.
It’s clearly a space zit.
“in the 40 watt range”
Sure looks like something hot....perhaps volcanic, but that would not make much sense if it were.
The aliens really should give NASA some decent photoshop software...
If the asteroid is a ball of ice covered with dust, it will be the most valuable piece of real estate in the solar system outside of Earth. Pop a nuclear reactor on it=instant rocket fuel factory, hydrogen and oxygen (which happens to be pretty good for breathing also). Easy-on, easy off with low escape velocity.
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