NASA Sees 'Bright Spots' On Dwarf Planet In Our Solar System

Here to my fellows ATS'ers.
Something really interesting.
I believe that there is extraterrestrial life in other planets. Could it be a signal of some intelligent life? Like solar panels or something similar.

www.cbc.ca... in-mystery-1.2974367

NASA scientists have seen the light. And it appears, on closer inspection, to have a "companion."

The problem is that researchers have little idea what the shiny spots observed on the mysterious dwarf planet Ceres could mean.

The space agency's Dawn spacecraft sent the photos back from the dwarf planet located between Mars and Jupiter, showing what appear to be tiny bright areas amid a rocky grey surface, lying side-by-side inside a circular depression,

The latest images were snapped at a distance of nearly 46,000 kilometres from Ceres.

A tight crop shows two bright spots in a basin on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. (NASA/JPL)

Dawn mission investigators have noticed a bright spot on the dwarf planet's surface before, but the new higher-resolution pictures indicate there are actually two bright areas close together.

"Ceres' bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin," Chris Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission, said in a statement.

"This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations."

Dawn is expected to enter orbit around Ceres on March 6, giving scientists another opportunity to get sharper views of the dwarf planet, which is estimated to have an average diameter of about 950 kilometres. By comparison, Earth has a diameter of roughly 12,742 kilometres.

"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres," said Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. "This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us."

Experts have speculated that the glimmers captured on its surface may be ice reflecting sunlight.
Dawn's mission, which belongs to NASA's Discovery program, is to orbit one member of the main asteroid belt Vesta.
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edit on 27-2-2015 by Abednego because: (no reason given)

a reply to: Abednego

This looks interesting but your link is not working.

Click Here

This is what he was trying to link. There are other threads on this already though.

a reply to: SullivanBlack

Thanks!

Cosmic rays. Move along, nothing to see here.

www.abovetopsecret.com... Already a thread on this.

originally posted by: MarieRose
Cosmic rays. Move along, nothing to see here.

Disagree, but could it be a collision like a meteorite?

It could be anything from:
A big giant ice cube reflecting light, some kind of metal exposed to the surface or ET's playing with their flashlights.

..or the result of relatively recent impacts, just like those on the moon.

If aliens are in our solar system, they chose a dumb place to hang out.

I think you are confused, I'm pretty sure NASA saw dwarfs on a bright planet. That's why it's a secret.

Already more than one thread on this.
Seeing as the name Ceres appears in your opening post , did it not occur to you to use it as a search parameter ????

Its just a really slow death star beam on its way to Dawn

So what is this bright spot? The craft should be there now, yet everything is quiet in the news about it all of a sudden. So typical. Makes you kind of wonder eh? ~$heopleNation

originally posted by: SheopleNation
So what is this bright spot? The craft should be there now, yet everything is quiet in the news about it all of a sudden. So typical. Makes you kind of wonder eh? ~$heopleNation

I direct you to this very informative post that explains why we're not seeing much updates or pictures from Dawn: www.abovetopsecret.com...

In short, it's not quite there yet.

a reply to: wildespace

As I knew you would buddy!

Thank you though, I appreciate the update. ~$heopleNation

What time is the orbital insertion uk time? I'm moving house tomorrow and Saturday so it all adds to excitement! Gonna pretend i'm in mission control entering my new house in sync with going Dawn going into orbit around Ceres Big kid I am

get ready for fuzzy photos and photo shopping.

originally posted by: AthlonSavage
get ready for fuzzy photos and photo shopping.

If Dawn's photos of Vesta are anything to go by, the photos of Ceres will be crisp and realistic enough to think you were there yourself.

WOW!! Can't wait!

Wildespace, do you know what time our time it'll be?

originally posted by: MrBergstrom
WOW!! Can't wait!

Wildespace, do you know what time our time it'll be?

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to enter Ceres’ orbit early on Friday, becoming the first ever probe to successfully visit a dwarf planet.

The rendezvous with Ceres’ gravity will take place around 7:30 a.m. ET, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., which is managing the mission.

“It’s a gentle handoff from the Sun’s orbit to Ceres’ orbit,” a JPL spokesman told FoxNews.com.

Ceres, which lies between Mars and Jupiter,will be 310 million miles from Earth at the time of Dawn's arrival.

Dawn’s antennas, however, are not scheduled to be in contact with Earth at the time of the rendezvous, but will be communicating with NASA shortly afterwards. “We have a scheduled pass with NASA’s deep space network that begins about an hour later,” said the JPL spokesman.

www.foxnews.com...

I think we will hear some news about the orbit intertion later today, but as explained in the ATS post I linked earlier, we won't see new pictures until much later.