is Ceres a dwarf planet, a Plutoid, an asteroid or a comet?

Sounds like a silly question? It probably is, but read this before you answer
Ceres may be an asteroid impersonator

If planetary scientist Bill McKinnon’s hunch is right, the largest asteroid in the solar system isn’t an asteroid at all. Ceres, as the 470-kilometer-wide object is called, may be a relative of Pluto that formed at the solar system’s fringes but came in from the cold several billion years ago.

I had to look up the definiton of Plutoid, and I don't get why we just don't call them dwarf planets. Does their distance from the sun really matter? We don't seem to mind when it comes to planets.

Anyway, I would call this a dwarf planet. It's got enough gravity to be a sphere, and it's bigger than most comets and lacks a comets tail.

reply to post by VIKINGANT

Who cares? Those definitions change all the time. Bloody stupid definitions anyway. Size does NOT matter.

Originally posted by Curious_Agnostic
and it's bigger than most comets and lacks a comets tail.

The tail does not come into the equation. They only appear when they get close to the sun and start 'melting' or emitting gasses. While they are in the K.Belt they are just tailess comets.

Who cares? Those definitions change all the time.

Yes but the 'make up' of the object does make a difference. If it is a solid rocky object then it would be considered plaetoid, but if it was just "dirty ice" it would more comet like.

I gues we will have to wait till 2015 to see what it is made of

I love it when news reporters get their facts wrong. That value of 470 kilometres is the radius of Ceres. The diameter is actually 940 kilometres.


[edit on 17-7-2008 by Mogget]

It would seem that it is entirely possible that Ceres was an asteroidal remnant especially with its similarities with pluto.
However i would question the model used to come up with the theory.
The model used was one based on the assumptions that gravity is the prevailing force in the universe, that the big bang and the big crunch theories are correct, and assuming that the electric universe model is incorect.

That is a lot to assume to come up with where a dwarf planet may have come from.
Personaly i have a problem with what was said in the artical about Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptunes obital "movement" in the theory.

The thing that bothers me the most is in the last part of the artical.
The Dawn probe wont get there till 2015, how sad it is that with such technology and intelligence available in the world today that missions still have to be refered to in years instead of months.

[edit on 17-7-2008 by full997]

I think that after new round of fighting among different schools of astronomers a new class will appear - Ceresoids. No problem there.

Ceres is an asteroid as far as I am concerned. It orbits the Sun in the asteroid belt, and it is too small to be classed as a planet. I don't really see the need for designations like "dwarf planet" or "plutoid".

OK. So for arguments sake it is not a plutoid, or dwarf planet or even a Ceresoids (Love that one ) is it an asteroid or a comet?

Does it have a tail? If it does then Comet if it doesn't Asteroid.

reply to post by sardion2000


as I said earlier

The tail does not come into the equation. They only appear when they get close to the sun and start 'melting' or emitting gasses. While they are in the K.Belt they are just tailess comets.

I am well aware that wikipedia is not the most popular of resources, but for simplicity, here goes...

Asteroids, also called minor planets or planetoids, are Solar System bodies smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids (which are commonly defined as being 10 meters across or less),[1] and that are not comets. The distinction between asteroids and comets is made on visual appearance when discovered: comets must show a perceptible coma (a fuzzy "atmosphere"), while asteroids do not.

Comets are small Solar System bodies that orbit the Sun and, when close enough to the Sun, exhibit a visible coma (atmosphere) or a tail — both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus. Comet nuclei are themselves loose collections of ice, dust and small rocky particles, measuring a few kilometres or tens of kilometres across.

[edit on 18/7/2008 by VIKINGANT]

Originally posted by Mogget
I love it when news reporters get their facts wrong. That value of 470 kilometres is the radius of Ceres. The diameter is actually 940 kilometres.


[edit on 17-7-2008 by Mogget]

exactly. it takes about 200+ kilometers to start getting spherical because nature like circles. So what, it could be a source of fresh water, a lot, but at the same time some sort of layer above. I can't wait till Dawn gets to Ceres, I know it's probably gonna find some possibility of Vesta having minerals but Ceres is much more interesting.

The value I read most associated with minimum diameter to form a spheroid is 500 km. Trans-Neptunian planetoids are characterized not only by their location, but also by their highly elliptical orbits, not associated with large asteroids in the main asteroid belt. And Pluto fits that description of just another trans-neptunian body. Pluto also has an orbit highly inclined from the orbital plane, as seen below.



What IS interesting is the great difference in what we know about the geological difference between Vesta and Ceres, Vesta being much more dense rock and Ceres having as much as 25% water elemental makeup, and much less dense than Vesta.

About why it takes so long to get to Ceres, well, the craft is staying at least a year at Vesta, and these asteroids are much further away than Mars, (and the ion thruster takes a very long time to accelerate and slow down). No liquid fuel rockets out there with high G-force acceleration. It amazes me with the time lag in communications NASA can steer these things with such precision. You have to understand how difficult it is to attain orbit around a low mass body like these tiny (largest) asteroids.

A 'plutoid' is defined as a trans-Neptunian dwarf planet, that's different than large asteroids.

I don't understand how the hell this is isn't surprising anyone.

LOOK....Just look at a picture of it. It's spherical shape is that of a nicely formed planet and is twice as big as the largest asteroid in the system and if even vesta hurtled toward the earth, it would be nothing like any asteroid encounter we've seen. It wouldn't just destroy us... or destroy some of us, like a alleged comet supposedly destroyed most of the dinosaurs... IT WOULD DESTROY THE PLANET.

Luckily the orbit seems stable and this is not likely to happen... I'm just making a point and my point is that they have known about this thing for WAAAY too long with it looking very much like a planet for me to have never heard of it.

Look.

upload.wikimedia.org...

I'm glad it's being mentioned... but I really don't think any on ATS has put very much focus on why this is so weird that they have kinda kept this out of the loop so to speak. We could have much better pictures of Ceres than we have. The idea that this planet is covered in water and they haven't went to check it out yet, to me, is freaking unbelievable. all we've got are blurry pictures and it's closer that jupiter? Yet here have a very clear shot of vesta where you can see craters and ridges and it's much smaller but no resolution close to that on Ceres. COME ON NASA. This appears to have been deliberately left out because of size? Even as blurry as this is, it's obvious it's a planet!

vesta

I mean, is everybody getting this? there is a planet past Mars that is covered in water and has a day of over 9 hours that was originally called a planet but then declassified as a planet in books for as long as most humans have been living and of reading age.

This is WILD!

Call it whatever the hell you want but to ATS members that have not learned of this planet, you should go check it out. I think it's fair to say they are hiding something....maybe it's just to keep from fueling the idea that there could be life so close to earth... because there could be. There's water and it's cold but it's not that cold...well, it would be freezing to me but some species would be fine.

This is amazing to me and everyone should at least look at this no matter what opinion you come to because there is a planet that you have not been told about in school.

NotAnAspie
I don't understand how the hell this is isn't surprising anyone.

LOOK....Just look at a picture of it. It's spherical shape is that of a nicely formed planet and is twice as big as the largest asteroid in the system and if even vesta hurtled toward the earth, it would be nothing like any asteroid encounter we've seen. It wouldn't just destroy us... or destroy some of us, like a alleged comet supposedly destroyed most of the dinosaurs... IT WOULD DESTROY THE PLANET.

Luckily the orbit seems stable and this is not likely to happen... I'm just making a point and my point is that they have known about this thing for WAAAY too long with it looking very much like a planet for me to have never heard of it.

Look.

upload.wikimedia.org...

I'm glad it's being mentioned... but I really don't think any on ATS has put very much focus on why this is so weird that they have kinda kept this out of the loop so to speak. We could have much better pictures of Ceres than we have. The idea that this planet is covered in water and they haven't went to check it out yet, to me, is freaking unbelievable. all we've got are blurry pictures and it's closer that jupiter? Yet here have a very clear shot of vesta where you can see craters and ridges and it's much smaller but no resolution close to that on Ceres. COME ON NASA. This appears to have been deliberately left out because of size? Even as blurry as this is, it's obvious it's a planet!

vesta

I mean, is everybody getting this? there is a planet past Mars that is covered in water and has a day of over 9 hours that was originally called a planet but then declassified as a planet in books for as long as most humans have been living and of reading age.

This is WILD!

Call it whatever the hell you want but to ATS members that have not learned of this planet, you should go check it out. I think it's fair to say they are hiding something....maybe it's just to keep from fueling the idea that there could be life so close to earth... because there could be. There's water and it's cold but it's not that cold...well, it would be freezing to me but some species would be fine.

This is amazing to me and everyone should at least look at this no matter what opinion you come to because there is a planet that you have not been told about in school.

edit on 7201331PM10PM29p10America/Chicago by NotAnAspie because: (no reason given)

The reason there are more high resolution images of Vesta us because the Dawn probe has been orbiting it since 2011. There's no huge conspiracy behind it. Obviously you haven't seen many images if it aside from the wiki article. There's this one for example -

Not quite as blurry as what's on Wikipedia is it?
It's also somewhat of a misnomer that nobody teaches anything about Ceres. Being the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system and the largest object in the asteroid belt makes it a little difficult to ignore. In another 18 months or so I would expect to see some very detailed pictures of Ceres which will expand our understanding of it as well as its importance in the grand scheme of the solar system.

reply to post by peter vlar


difficult to ignore but I bet most have not heard about it.

As for the images... those aren't really images I'm assuming (prior to taking the time to research the images). I am pretty certain those are radar images and not what the planet actually looks like because that image suggests to anyone who is not aware that it is a radar image that it is only rock....making it look even more like an asteroid. So, that makes my comparison of the two images irrelevant... but my point remains that we should have a better image of Ceres. An ACTUAL image. Can you find me and ACTUAL image of Ceres that shows it's terrain better?... because it shouldn't be that hard.

And why circle vesta when Ceres is probably much more interesting. that makes no sense.

www.fromquarkstoquasars.com...

take that image for example... I'm pretty sure it's fake... an overlay of color on the radar image and not a true example of what ceres really looks like.

Do you think this is a real image? If so, do tell.

All the real images I've seen so far are blurry or sharpened images of the blurry ones.

Unacceptable.

They should be able to provide a better representation of how Ceres really looks, not just the shape of the rock beneath the water.... and since it is a planet and has been a planet, it should be represented as a planet. I do not see ceres on any models or in any planet list so far... unless the article is SPECIFICALLY about ceres. Why the elimination?

Ceres is now considered a dwarf planet and its like a mini earth, beautiful.



Funny how this little jewel out past mars, like a mini earth is originally called and asteroid and no one gets to hear of it much.

reply to post by NotAnAspie


Its not fake, the color one that I have was on the science sites, and they also said scientists thought there may be water and life supporting conditions....so, not fake, beautiful jewel, suspect its a twin of earth and we're parts of tiamat and that they like to lie and hide things alot. I've been interested in Ceres for several years now.

www.astrobio.net...

n March of 2015, NASA's Dawn mission will arrive at the dwarf planet Ceres, the first of the smaller class of planets to be discovered and the closest to Earth. Ceres, which orbits the Sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is a unique body in the Solar System, bearing many similarities to Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, both considered to be potential sources for harboring life.

en.wikipedia.org...

Here is the color pic, and wiki says:

Ceres as seen by Hubble Space Telescope (ACS).[1] The contrast has been enhanced to reveal surface details.

Ehanced at that distance to show surface details.

www.space.com...

Size of Texas.