Another Dawn image of some of Ceres’ bright spots
Cool image time! As part JPL’s regular release of images from Dawn, one image of Ceres’ bright double spots was purposely not over-exposed. Thus, the surface is almost black (as it really looks), while the small cluster of spots stands out brightly but with some additional detail. (If you download the full image and use a graphics program to brighten it you will see that this is the double bright spot located inside a large crater.)
I have cropped and enlarged the original image to focus on the double spot. As you can see the brightest spot has a mottled look, almost like we are looking down at a snow-capped peak.
Though the leading theory remains that this is ice, this theory has not been confirmed yet. Make no assumptions or you may discover you are wrong.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cool image time! As part JPL’s regular release of images from Dawn, one image of Ceres’ bright double spots was purposely not over-exposed. Thus, the surface is almost black (as it really looks), while the small cluster of spots stands out brightly but with some additional detail. (If you download the full image and use a graphics program to brighten it you will see that this is the double bright spot located inside a large crater.)
I have cropped and enlarged the original image to focus on the double spot. As you can see the brightest spot has a mottled look, almost like we are looking down at a snow-capped peak.
Though the leading theory remains that this is ice, this theory has not been confirmed yet. Make no assumptions or you may discover you are wrong.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Is this on the nightime side? If so, it’s awfully hard to see how this could be reflective ice.
As far as I understand, this is the daylight side. Ceres, like most asteroids, is very dark, about the color of coal.
Thus the reason it is so hard to locate asteroids. It will be a very long time before all of them are charted. Lots of places for space pirates to hide…