Bright Spots on Ceres Solved

It looks like Ceres' bright spots are slightly more mundane than hoped for. Salt and water ice still is pretty exciting, IMO.

Ceres' Spots

a reply to: billygentry

No news, then. This is what they have been saying from day 1. If only someone had brought a spectrometer, it would have been proven without a doubt.

a reply to: billygentry

Stay frosty, it's just another theory.

Of particular interest is a bright pit on the floor of crater Occator that exhibits probable sublimation of water ice, producing haze clouds inside the crater that appear and disappear with a diurnal rhythm. Slow-moving condensed-ice or dust particles may explain this haze. We conclude that Ceres must have accreted material from beyond the ‘snow line’, which is the distance from the Sun at which water molecules condense.

www.nature.com...

More new questions than answers or actual proof to solve existing ones, sounds like good old science in progress to me. Anyway... where we find water, we'll presumably find life as well.

Interesting, S&F!

originally posted by: Sheesh
a reply to: billygentry

No news, then. This is what they have been saying from day 1. If only someone had brought a spectrometer, it would have been proven without a doubt.

I don't think a spectrometer would have done them much good...

This problem is not solved. A speculation that the bright spots are piles of hydrated magnesium sulphate based solely upon their high albedo and NOT on spectral or chemical analysis does not amount to proof. It's merely a possible explanation. But of course it is quite common in astronomy for possible explanations to be passed off to the general public as proven facts - particularly when no alternative conventional explanation is on offer. This is yet another example.

Here's my theory:

From the article it appears that Ceres may have formed at the outskirts of the solar system and ultimately made its way to the asteroid belt. It's also made up of water and magnesium sulfate (Epsom Salts.)

So, I believe it was dragged from the Oort cloud to the asteroid belt so it would be more convenient for the extra-terrestrials with giant sore feet.


-dex

a reply to: billygentry

To achieve faceted crystals of sufficient size to reflect optical wavelengths without a color bias, implies that crystallization time was long (allowing atoms to arrange physically according to their ionic attractions).

At the temperature of this object (a maximum of -35 decrees C), and with the particular hydrated salts mentioned, and with the the way the accretion of molecular water/salts occurred, I cannot see that as a possibility.

Not solved.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: billygentry

To achieve faceted crystals of sufficient size to reflect optical wavelengths without a color bias, implies that crystallization time was long (allowing atoms to arrange physically according to their ionic attractions).

At the temperature of this object (a maximum of -35 decrees C), and with the particular hydrated salts mentioned, and with the the way the accretion of molecular water/salts occurred, I cannot see that as a possibility.

Not solved.

So water at -35 in the Antarctic cannot be white ?

originally posted by: slapjacks

originally posted by: Sheesh
a reply to: billygentry

No news, then. This is what they have been saying from day 1. If only someone had brought a spectrometer, it would have been proven without a doubt.

I don't think a spectrometer would have done them much good...

Ok and why is that?

originally posted by: yorkshirelad

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: billygentry

To achieve faceted crystals of sufficient size to reflect optical wavelengths without a color bias, implies that crystallization time was long (allowing atoms to arrange physically according to their ionic attractions).

At the temperature of this object (a maximum of -35 decrees C), and with the particular hydrated salts mentioned, and with the the way the accretion of molecular water/salts occurred, I cannot see that as a possibility.

Not solved.

So water at -35 in the Antarctic cannot be white ?

Along the outskirts of Antarctica, the temperature has been know to rise to 15 degrees C, well above the melting point of ice. On Ceres, there is no indication that the ice could have ever been liquid.

Yes, the water could be translucently white (like a cloud) but would not have the high reflectivity that seems to be what we are seeing on Ceres.

why isn't everybody giving a F anymore in this thread: www.abovetopsecret.com...
????

i posted 3 new pics today... =(

a reply to: egidio88

Me? Waiting for new pics, the 4 times bigger ones.

Dawn is now entering a low-altitude mapping orbit around Ceres, and will soon quadruple the resolution of its best images of the surface. “When the data’s spatial resolution increases by a factor of four, the one thing I have complete confidence in is surprises…. God knows there will be many more questions to scratch our heads about!” he adds.

www.scientificamerican.com...