Dantu Crater on Ceres
Cool image time! As Dawn continues its close survey of Ceres, the science team has released this image of Dantu Crater, showing the bright spots on its rim as well as fractures on the crater floor. The picture was taken in December and has a resolution of about 120 feet per pixel.
Though scientists now favor salt deposits of some kind as the cause of the bright areas on Ceres, they also recognize that this theory is not yet proven. Moreover, the theory suggests that the salt was deposited as part of a water brine. When the water in the brine evaporated away, it left the salt behind. The problem, however, is that we do not yet have direct evidence that there is any water on Ceres at all, either on the surface or in the interior, which makes this theory exceedingly uncertain.
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Cool image time! As Dawn continues its close survey of Ceres, the science team has released this image of Dantu Crater, showing the bright spots on its rim as well as fractures on the crater floor. The picture was taken in December and has a resolution of about 120 feet per pixel.
Though scientists now favor salt deposits of some kind as the cause of the bright areas on Ceres, they also recognize that this theory is not yet proven. Moreover, the theory suggests that the salt was deposited as part of a water brine. When the water in the brine evaporated away, it left the salt behind. The problem, however, is that we do not yet have direct evidence that there is any water on Ceres at all, either on the surface or in the interior, which makes this theory exceedingly uncertain.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’ve read numerous reports of the Hubble Space Telescope having repeatedly detected water vapor at Ceres. Has Dawn failed to confirm such observations?
This is just a guess, if Ceres was covered in ice at one time (methane or ammonia and/or numerous other ices not unlike most of the other moons in the outer solar system) then a meteor impacting would’ve covered the ice with dirt. Sheets of ice would’ve been pushed aside and piled up leaving irregular mounds in the regolith similar to what we see around the edges of the basin like worm tracks.
The buried ices under pressure and heat would follow the nearest path of least resistance to the surface, bring with it whatever it dissolves in the rock. Once the liquid reaches the airless vacuum, it will boil leaving behind any dissolved material that it took out with it. I see holes along the base of the cliff that might indicate caverns. Ice long evaporated leaving Voids.
There is much evidence that our solar system passes through inter-stellar gas clouds from time to time. ( The interior of our own galaxy is hidden by so much gas that we cannot see what’s in the middle clearly, Or perhaps outgassing of the sun on a major level) The material would block the light and heat of the sun while coating all of the outer planets with the new layor of thicker atmospheres or ice and mass.
The evidence for a meteor impact the killed the dinosaurs could have also been caused by this type of catastrophic event without the violence. The methane and ammonia gases would’ve condensed our atmosphere cooling us off and causing an ice age and leaving behind water and nitrogen as the evidence.
The Noah event as described in old testament exactly describes what would happen if our atmosphere was to burn off (like extreme northern lights) leaving behind a much thinner atmosphere and the water as snow /ice covering everything. Once the solar system has passed through the cloud, heat and light from the sun would return bringing a new spring to a drastically new planet with hotter days and colder nights.
Just thinking out loud.