Don'tKnow if Anybody Was Watching: We Have a New Planet: Ceres

It's a dwarf planet like Pluto but it is nevertheless a planet.
- Ceres - Looks like a planet to me

It's hiding in the asteroid belt between Mars & Jupiter.
If i had a good sized telescope on the dark side of the moon i could probably get a
better look at Ceres.

We need a better way of teaching students exactly how many planets are in our
solar system.

Bright Spot? Any guesses?
- Ceres - Welcome to the Solar System

reply to post by Eurisko2012


You mean like a standard list? Dang this is always changing on us! Darn you Tyson!

Actually, I think Tyson is a great guy...but really...

Bright Spot? Probably ice I would think? Or frozen methane or something like that...

I am glad there is no neighbouring planets close by with life on them because we would most likely declare war on them.

reply to post by JJRichey


The bright spot could be a spaceport for the aliens that live there.

--------
Lets see. How many $$$ trillions of gold, platinum & rhodium are floating around out there?

Ceres has sure caught the attention of guys running the Hubble. Hmmm.....

Originally posted by SupersonicSerpent
I am glad there is no neighbouring planets close by with life on them because we would most likely declare war on them.

At first i thought it looked a lot like the huge space station in Star Wars.

The one that destroyed Alderan.

Ceres has always been an interesting little rock in my eyes, it's kind of a last outpost before you enter the lands of the gas giants.

It is really small though, just barely big enough to keep its round shape intact if i remember correctly

Originally posted by SupersonicSerpent
I am glad there is no neighbouring planets close by with life on them because we would most likely declare war on them.

Unfortunately you are probably right. Damn though...wouldn't it be cool to say you were taking a family vacation to another planet.

There's several others too

Haumea
Makemake
Eris

Although, these are beyond Pluto.

Oh and also, here's a whole bunch more "objects" that are commonly called dwarf planets;
90377 Sedna
90482 Orcus
(225088) 2007 OR10
50000 Quaoar

My
Very
Educated
Mother
C
Just
Served
Us
Nine
Pizzas

first they took the pizzas away, now this...

i am all messed up now...
where is earth again

reply to post by InsideYourMind


Don't forget Sedna with it's weird oval orbit! en.wikipedia.org...

I can't wait until the "New Horizons" spacecraft finally reaches Pluto, Charon, Hydra and Nix!

reply to post by Aeroe


I think the asteroid belt used to be a large planet that exploded millions of years ago.

We need to get out there and get the gold.
BTW, we need to get back to the moon and get some Helium-3.

Originally posted by Eurisko2012
If i had a good sized telescope on the dark side of the moon i could probably get a
better look at Ceres.

To see Ceres, you just need binoculars.
Even a large telescope will show Ceres as a white dot, but at least you can say you've seen it.

Wiki said it was announced as a planet in 1801. So why haven't we hear about it before? It went on to say that it was even published in text books at the time it was announced.

Originally posted by 8ILlBILl8
Wiki said it was announced as a planet in 1801. So why haven't we hear about it before? It went on to say that it was even published in text books at the time it was announced.

We need a new and improved solar system simulator with all of the asteroids.

If i were standing on the surface of Ceres, what would i see if a turned my head ?

It's my guess it would not look like Hans Solo flying through an asteroid belt.
The rocks would be more spread apart.

Originally posted by 8ILlBILl8
Wiki said it was announced as a planet in 1801. So why haven't we hear about it before? It went on to say that it was even published in text books at the time it was announced.

Maybe YOU havnt heard about it before, but its actually very well known.
Because it was the first ever asteroid to be discovered, it was called a "planet", only to be downgraded later on when it was realised that there were thousands of those asteroids.
Somewhat more recently it was upgraded back again to "minor planet".

They're reasonably easy to see.
Ceres, Vesta, Juno, Pallas, can all be seen by walking out into your backyard with binoculars and looking in the right place.
And occasionally a fainter smaller asteroid is in a position where it is bright enough to be seen in binoculars as well. Over time, you can see a rather large number of these asteroids if you wish.

Originally posted by alfa1

Originally posted by Eurisko2012
If i had a good sized telescope on the dark side of the moon i could probably get a
better look at Ceres.

To see Ceres, you just need binoculars.
Even a large telescope will show Ceres as a white dot, but at least you can say you've seen it.

I found a better place to see Ceres.

You will have to pay to use it

Run for the hills; Its Nibiru!!!

Someone was going to say it. I just wanted to beat them to it.

Originally posted by 8ILlBILl8
Wiki said it was announced as a planet in 1801. So why haven't we hear about it before?

Now this sort of thing REALLY irritates me and is behind most of the ignorance that prevails.
No... Not we... YOU

As to why, because you haven't studied astronomy I imagine.

Sorry if this seems to be a personal attack and to be honest it probably is slightly, but it's more the attitude I am attacking.. You just got the short straw on when I snapped and decided to write about my anger with it.

I get fed up with seeing perfectly public information that has just been 'discovered' by people in the conspiracy community being flouted around as some sort 'leak', 'drip feeding', 'slip', etc because THEY haven't come across it before. Wherever it be a mission, astronomical object or concept, historical event, whatever!
Frankly, if people spent less time hanging around the sites which promise to 'open their eyes' and actually looked at the perfectly acceptable and valid sources out there (which funnily enough the eye-opening sites seem to want to steer clear of... funny....) then they'd know about it.

The f'ing ridiculous 'Nibiru' videos of people pointing cameras at the Sun are an excellent example, proper education would reveal on so many levels why they are complete rubbish. Ranging from how CCD and CMOS sensors work, how lenses work, etc to basic astronomy. Lack of proper education substituted for 'education' from 'eye opening' sites simply results in large groups of 'enlightened' people whose brains are mush and are little use other than to work in the cheese factory packing cheese.

Originally posted by HawkeyeNation

Originally posted by SupersonicSerpent
I am glad there is no neighbouring planets close by with life on them because we would most likely declare war on them.

Unfortunately you are probably right.

Quite! The human race disgusts me sometimes (myself included), for a race of beings that can be so creative, loving and beautiful we are equally destructive, evil and ugly.
What other species on the planet destroys it's own habitat and everything in it while actually understanding what they are doing and how they could prevent it. We don't deserve to have the privilege to inflict our 'humanity' on extra-terrestrial worlds until we finally come to resolve our inner conflicts and inane stupidity.
There seems to be a huge split between well meaning people and people in power.... Then you have the really clever people that can actually accomplish our aspirations inbetween doing the bidding of... sadly the people in power... (generalising here there are plenty of people that fit inbetween one way or another).

If the budget spent by the UK or especially the US on war was spent on scientific endeavors to expand our understanding of the universe and explore it (even if just using advanced instruments) then we would probably be a lot closer to fully understanding the universe and the answer as to wherever or not we're 'alone' would be answered if not now, soon. The various instruments on the drawing boards and being built that could even analyse the atmospheres of exoplanets would be built to perfection and we'd be getting the answers we want.
The budgets that we fight for to build things like the JWST are a fraction of a yearly war budget. So sad....
Actually, even a fraction of the war budget would be more than enough. There would be plenty left to help starving people or something...

Luckily our explorations off world are so far limited to robotic missions which seek to gather information. Imagine if the types of people that govern the world and businesses ever get venture 'out there' and interact as they do in every day life on this planet. What a mess.....

reply to post by AgentSmith


A trip to the moon could be very profitable. - Helium 3 -

Tourism could also bring in the $$$.