Could dwarf planet Ceres be watching us watching it? As NASA's Dawn
spacecraft approaches the largest object in the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter, it seems to be lighting up. Not long after images of
Ceres revealed a strange reflective spot, another dimmer one came into
view in the latest
NASA images, giving the appearance of a spooky pair of eyes peering back at Dawn.
So
what's going on here? Metallic mineral deposits? The local ice skating
rink on an improbably shiny frozen lake in the bottom of a huge crater? A
giant Ceresian mirror or solar farm?
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The answer is...we have no idea.
"Ceres' bright spot
can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently
in the same basin. 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," said UCLA's Chris Russell,
principal investigator for the Dawn mission, in a statement Wednesday.
As Dawn gets closer, the images sent back of
Ceres become more clear and, frankly, more weird. The above image with
the two bright spots was taken from about 29,000 miles from the surface
of the dwarf planet. Dawn will continue its approach until March 6, when
it will enter orbit around Ceres to get better views for a period of 16
months.
In the coming months, those strange bright spots should
come more into focus, as should the underlying nature of Ceres, which
many believe may be hiding
more freshwater than we have here on Earth.
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