Ceres has a spot.
Sep. 9th, 2005 01:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinThe Hubble Space Telescope takes pictures of Ceres, and discovers a mysterious brighter spot (it is actually not that bright; the whole thing is pretty dark).
Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter (some minor planets in the outer solar system's Kuiper Belt are bigger, but they're usually not called asteroids these days). It was also the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. But there have never been any really good pictures of Ceres, and I think these are the best ever taken. There's a mission to Ceres and Vesta currently in preparation called DAWN, an ion-powered spacecraft; the plan is for it to study Vesta in 2011-2012 and Ceres in 2015-2016.
Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter (some minor planets in the outer solar system's Kuiper Belt are bigger, but they're usually not called asteroids these days). It was also the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. But there have never been any really good pictures of Ceres, and I think these are the best ever taken. There's a mission to Ceres and Vesta currently in preparation called DAWN, an ion-powered spacecraft; the plan is for it to study Vesta in 2011-2012 and Ceres in 2015-2016.