What are the dimensions of Ceres? What is the average orbital distance from the sun and is it on a stretched elliptical path that might have brought it close to Mars way back when?
Ceres is the largest rock in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. One of many, many bodies out there. Being named for the mother goddess of the Romans, it’s a natural for those who write the titles on the covers of magazines. Earth mother=earth mother.
“With a diameter of about 950 km (roughly the width of Spain, France, and Germany combined), Ceres is by far the largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, and contains a third (32%) of the belt’s total mass.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_Ceres