Closest image of Ceres' "Bright Spot" yet

This is quite fascinating. The complexity of the famous Bright Spit turned out to be quite surprising, and this latest image can give us a slightly bigger clue as to what it actually is - or is not. For instance we can clearly see that it is no boulder. Neither is it an alien flying saucer, as many have suggested (I hope with humour).

Though the amount of possibilities regarding the nature of this Bright Spot has been culled down, we are still not clear as to what it is exactly we are looking at in the picture.

According to the source,

The brightest spots on the dwarf planet Ceres gleam with mystery in new views delivered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. These closest-yet views of Occator crater, with a resolution of 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel, give scientists a deeper perspective on these very unusual features.

This is getting quite interesting indeed.

Clearest pic of ice, frost, frozen volatiles, et al.

Throw in distance from the sun, lo light camera and hi contrast…

a reply to: swanne

Seems like a fairly fresh crater. I'm still leaning toward ice, or some type of salt deposit.

a reply to: swanne

Or, like someones else said. It looks like the marks left on the moon, after the moon landing. Aliens! Not really, who knows?

a reply to: slapjacks

The marks of a spacecraft landing? Well, it certainly would have to be a most large spacecraft.

Just giving you an idea of the scales involved here: the crater is about 57 miles across...

a reply to: swanne

One can dream... lol

A thread on this topic has been previously created.

Please add to the ongoing discussion here

This thread is closed