Dawn probe to orbit asteroid Vesta

Kidchameleon

ElizKenny that's a gorgeous image

Cork boy 55

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I'm so excited! First real look at a new world! When was the last time that happened? I wonder what the bright dot is gonna be?

That's the exterior structures of the Post Terran Mining Corporation (PTMC) Research Bunker Ceres.

Zubeneschamali

ElizKenny wrote: »

www .jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4475

That's no moon...

Zubeneschamali

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I wonder what the bright dot is gonna be?

Shiraz 4.99

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-spacecraft-nears-historic-dwarf-planet-arrival/#.VPhZAy62rb0

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to its historic orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters orbit around Ceres on Friday, March 6.

"Dawn is about to make history," said Robert Mase, project manager for the Dawn mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "Our team is ready and eager to find out what Ceres has in store for us."

Maximus Alexander

That bright spot actually gets more peculiar the better the resolution becomes.

Shiraz 4.99

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

That bright spot actually gets more peculiar the better the resolution becomes.

Obviously the main weapon of the death star these unfriendly aliens inhabit.
We should give them a nice big poke.

Maximus Alexander

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

Obviously the main weapon of the death star these unfriendly aliens inhabit.
We should give them a nice big poke.

I'm just utterly intrigued. It's so different from the rest of the surface. I wonder if it could be active outgassing, or exposed ice where something punched through the crust.

Shiraz 4.99

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I'm just utterly intrigued. It's so different from the rest of the surface. I wonder if it could be active outgassing, or exposed ice where something punched through the crust.

Well I'm no rocket surgeon but I think you'll find the surface is mostly highly reflective ice which is only exposed once a recent asteroid impacts or bounces off.

Chemical Byrne

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Why is nobody talking about this??

...... I wonder what the bright dot is gonna be?

It's Larry Murphy's new covert lair.

The Sunday World's Paul Williams will be using Dawn's precision optics to snap pics of the beast of Baltinglass seedy antics from orbit. From orbit, he'll also be blaring aggressive questioning about Murphy's past through Dawn's high power megaphone. :pac::pac:

Seriously, it is very interesting. I'm reading about it with interest.

JupiterKid

The bright spots are intruiging. Personally, I'm hoping that they are evidence of cryovolcanism on Ceres. To find that such a small body is geologically active would be a great discovery.

Dawn enters Ceres orbit today.

Capt'n Midnight

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/marc-rayman/20150401-dawn-journal-preparing-to-photograph-ceres.html

More on the mission dates and orbits







RC3 April 23 – May 9 13,500Km orbit with 1,300m resolution

By December it should be down to 35m resolution.

mickmackey1

The best pic to date is in -




Looking more like a geological formation, related to a central peak of the crater maybe...

greedygoblin

It would be somewhat ironic if it was found to be some mineral deposit containing cerium (cerium was named after Ceres).

josip

mickmackey1 wrote: »

Looking more like a geological formation, related to a central peak of the crater maybe...

Looks like the Apple logo to me...

2 stroke

Mushrooms?

Zubeneschamali

2 stroke wrote: »

Mushrooms?

No thanks, I'm trying to cut down.

mickmackey1

Well this is a tease... detailed view from just 3,200 miles up, but not the bright spots region of course -

Zubeneschamali

It's a shadow of something large, rectangular and relatively thin, maybe 1 by 4 by 9.

mickmackey1

Now from just 2,700 miles up. Still no explanation.

josip

Nice "video"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=46&v=uSaLVAl-ObY

Mountainsandh

Anyone else get the feeling there's more of that shiny stuff elsewhere too on Ceres ?

There seems to be isolated tiny spots on the pic above (with the big spots), there's also a little dot 3 quarters of the way down the pic, center/right that looks like it could be a recent, tiny crater, with a bright dot in the middle.

On this pic, there seems to be some tiny spots too...
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/images/largesize/PIA19570_hires.jpg


edit : I wonder rather than a deposit from the impactor, if this is not just something that's under the surface, and seeps out in places, then dries off again (or seeps back in). That would explain the remnants in other locations.

Bongalongherb

Possibly Coloradoite, or a similar crystallised rock.

Zubeneschamali

Mountainsandh wrote: »

I wonder rather than a deposit from the impactor, if this is not just something that's under the surface, and seeps out in places, then dries off again (or seeps back in). That would explain the remnants in other locations.

The most common explanation I've seen is that it is water ice, in a layer below the dusty surface and the rocky core, exposed at impact or outgassing sites.

Hmmzis

This image is just fascinating, just goes to show how much brighter the spots are in comparison to anything else on Ceres (or at least that region):

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19584.jpg

The exposure is set so low that Ceres itself is barely visible at all.

shedweller

Hmmzis wrote: »

This image is just fascinating, just goes to show how much brighter the spots are in comparison to anything else on Ceres (or at least that region):

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19584.jpg

The exposure is set so low that Ceres itself is barely visible at all.

Could it be that every time they take a picture they are doing it in a position that whatever this shiny stuff is, it's reflecting sunlight back into the camera? If it was a glossy sheet of ice for example, it would be like a mirror and the reflected sunlight would be extremely bright and need a massive reduction in exposure time to see any detail.
Or maybe its this bright no matter what angle they take the pictures??
Ok, my brain has just rebooted a little more. (Night shift!) The crater shadowing indicates the sun is at an angle to the camera so that idea is more or less shot!
I'm thinking a white deposit like Curiosity etc. found on Mars. Either from the interior of Ceres or the remains of an impactor that... err impacted!

ps200306

shedweller wrote: »

The crater shadowing indicates the sun is at an angle to the camera so that idea is more or less shot!

Yeah, it's surprising the range of angles at which it lights up! I think I read that it is four times more reflective than the surrounding terrain, with an albedo of 40%.

_Tombstone_

Aliens

Captain Chaos

The Monolith from 2001.

Cork boy 55

Clearly a Cylon Tylium mining production industrial complex.
The structure on the left is the mining ship this will be connected to the structures on the right via an underground tunnel which are the refinery and storage complex.