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[Triplicates]

I believe this is the inspiration for the Armageddon asteroid. It's interesting to see it in such high resolution. The artist depictions in my old textbooks were way off, especially in terms of shape.

 

[PuppetSlave]

What is Ceres composed of?

Maybe I am just hungry but when I look at this I just read "chocolaty inner core", "minty creamy layer" and "Thin sugary outer crust".

Now I want an Ceres tart.

 

[jackissocool]

So the gravity is what, less than 1% of Earth's? Not practical for walking around, I guess.

Crazy that the entire mass of the asteroid belt isn't even 10% the mass of the moon.

 

[DD]

Pretty unreal isn't it

AYY LMAO

 

[Drazgul]

So the gravity is what, less than 1% of Earth's? Not practical for walking around, I guess.

Just action-pose powerslide wherever you wanna go.

 

[diaspora]

Throw that shit into Mars.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Throw that shit into Mars.

But it belongs in Uranus

 

[A-V-B]

God damn that's an obscure joke.

 

[Wreav]

Also here's Vesta, which it already stopped at. Whole thing is about 326 miles in diameter.

Friend and I were debating this morning...would it be possible for Vesta to have a gravitational effect, such that loose rocks on the surface would roll constantly as it rotates? I notice those dark striations along the axis of rotation, and the thought of constantly moving rocks scraping trenches into the surface seems kinda cool.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

It's kind of sad that so many people here have such a poor understanding of the sheer magnitude and scope of an experiment like this that all they take away from these photos is that they're grainy and low-resolution.

It's truly disheartening.

 

[thog16]

Article here
"Volcano like origin"?

 

[User 73706]

Totally not accurate. All lies.

:lol

 

[ParityBit]

Orbit will happen around 4:20 PST on Friday March 6th!

 

[gutshot]

Dawn has entered orbit around Ceres, becoming the first probe to ever orbit a dwarf planet!

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-spacecraft-becomes-first-to-orbit-a-dwarf-planet/

 

[Tacitus_]

For comparison

 

[justjohn]

We should find a way of transporting that water to earth. São Paulo is really hurting right now.

 

[kswiston]

For comparison

Ceres is the smallest of the designated dwarfs

We should find a way of transporting that water to earth. São Paulo is really hurting right now.

It would be several orders of magnitude cheaper to invest in desalination plants.

 

[Partial Gamification]

Friend and I were debating this morning...would it be possible for Vesta to have a gravitational effect, such that loose rocks on the surface would roll constantly as it rotates? I notice those dark striations along the axis of rotation, and the thought of constantly moving rocks scraping trenches into the surface seems kinda cool.

That is an interesting idea, but I'm doubting such erosion would be so regular.

The popular idea is that these resulted from pressure waves traveling through the object after hitting something large, similar to a soda can crumpling.


Dawn is flying on an ion engine. The path it took is interesting to checkout. NASA's Eyes (on the solar system) is a neat free tool to check it out.

I heard speculation there might be salts there too (at or near the bright reflections).

 

[foxuzamaki]

Also here's Vesta, which it already stopped at. Whole thing is about 326 miles in diameter.

Man, that isn't much at all, you can circle it in like 5 hours the US dwarfs it.

 

[Mecha]

Great stuff, I wonder if there's enough interest for a space OT.

 

[Mecha]

Live stream related to Ceres.

 

[zer0blivion]

This stuff is fascinating.

Today at 2pm ET: Listen to a briefing about the 1st orbiting of a dwarf planet by @NASA_Dawn: http://1.usa.gov/aLZKp
https://twitter.com/NASA/status/573902876273213440

 

[Lamel]

Man, that isn't much at all, you can circle it in like 5 hours the US dwarfs it.

It's king kai's planet.

 

[Mecha]

This stuff is fascinating.

Today at 2pm ET: Listen to a briefing about the 1st orbiting of a dwarf planet by @NASA_Dawn: http://1.usa.gov/aLZKp
https://twitter.com/NASA/status/573902876273213440

I hope I can watch this one, the Slooh stream has been interesting.

 

[zer0blivion]

I hope I can watch this one, the Slooh stream has been interesting.

It sure was. Thanks for sharing.

The NASA stream starts soon. They're playing Santana muzak right now.

 

[Woorloog]

Great stuff, I wonder if there's enough interest for a space OT.

There is a space thread in the OT Community, called Space: Final Frontier. Or some such. Mostly pics, but it is basically the general Space |OT| thread.

 

[Amir0x]

I want to marry Science. Who will be my best man?

 

[FZZ]

Wasn't Pluto declared as a planet again?

 

[zer0blivion]

I want to marry Science. Who will be my best man?

I bet Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) would do it.

Wasn't Pluto declared as a planet again?

It's considered a dwarf planet.

http://www.space.com/43-pluto-the-ninth-planet-that-was-a-dwarf.html

 

[Bregor]

Wasn't Pluto declared as a planet again?

Nope. Still just a Dwarf Planet.

 

[Mecha]

My screenshot of Ceres in Space Engine. Too bad the game doesn't show us what the two bright spots are!

 

[Amir0x]

I bet Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) would do it.

he might say i was cheating with science on him

 

[IISANDERII]

It would be several orders of magnitude cheaper to invest in desalination plants.

It's always about what's cheaper. What a frugal species we are.

 

[Slayer-33]

So they found out what the white dot is?

 

[Hoodbury]

So they found out what the white dot is?

The longer they take to tell us, the more convinced I am it's aliens and they are trying to think up excuses to not tell us or make up something else that is believable.


/kidding

 

[GhaleonEB]

So they found out what the white dot is?

I was listening to Science Friday on the way into work today and they talked about this. The director of the program said he didn't know yet, but they will be able to get photos that are ~100x better than they can now as they spiral closer and closer to Ceres this year. So we should have a much better idea in the next few months.

 

[Slayer-33]

I was listening to Science Friday on the way into work today and they talked about this. The director of the program said he didn't know yet, but they will be able to get photos that are ~100x better than they can now as they spiral closer and closer to Ceres this year. So we should have a much better idea in the next few months.

The longer they take to tell us, the more convinced I am it's aliens and they are trying to think up excuses to not tell us or make up something else that is believable.


/kidding

This stuff is very fishy

 

[Lemonte]

Ceres is the server I play planetside 2 on!

 

[gutshot]

This stuff is very fishy

What's fishy about it? The photos we have are so far away that we can't get any detail on the white spots. Scientists can guess at what it is but won't be able to say definitively. Once Ceres gets closer we will have much more detailed pics and so they can say with much more certainty what it is.

 

[gutshot]

After spending more than a month in orbit on the dark side of dwarf planet Ceres, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has captured several views of the sunlit north pole of this intriguing world. These images were taken on April 10 from a distance of 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers), and they represent the highest-resolution views of Ceres to date.

Subsequent images of Ceres will show surface features at increasingly better resolution.

Dawn arrived at Ceres on March 6, marking the first time a spacecraft has orbited a dwarf planet. Previously, the spacecraft explored giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months from 2011 to 2012. Dawn has the distinction of being the only spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial targets.

Ceres, with an average diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers), is the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn has been using its ion propulsion system to maneuver to its first science orbit at Ceres, which it will reach on April 23. The spacecraft will remain at a distance of 8,400 miles (13,500 kilometers) from the dwarf planet until May 9. Afterward, it will make its way to lower orbits.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4555

Such a cool pic. Can't wait for the even more detailed photos!

 

[Crispy75]

What the hell is it?

EDIT: What the hell is the convex feature on the surface of Ceres seen in this series of photographs from the Dawn spacecraft that have been assembled into an animated GIF file and shared on imgur, the popular image hosting service?

 

[Log4Girlz]

What the hell is it?

Its a gif

 

[nasax]

What the hell is it?

Someone forgot to turn on the anti-alisiang.

 

[Lach]

Kree Outpost?
Protomolecule?
Just a random rock formation?
Is such a thing even possible?

 

[Chuckie]

What the hell is it?

EDIT: What the hell is the convex feature on the surface of Ceres seen in this series of photographs from the Dawn spacecraft that have been assembled into an animated GIF file and shared on imgur, the popular image hosting service?

 

[MrCunningham]

But what if a business claims something that is already owned by another alien race that we are unaware of?

What the hell is it?

EDIT: What the hell is the convex feature on the surface of Ceres seen in this series of photographs from the Dawn spacecraft that have been assembled into an animated GIF file and shared on imgur, the popular image hosting service?

My first reaction to this is that it is possibly glare from ice.

 

[JCizzle]

But what if a business claims something that is already owned by another alien race that we are unaware of?

Didn't stop us from doing that to the native Americans...

 

[sinxtanx]

If you look closely, you can see a small rocky dwarf planet

 

[akachan ningen]

What the hell is it?

EDIT: What the hell is the convex feature on the surface of Ceres seen in this series of photographs from the Dawn spacecraft that have been assembled into an animated GIF file and shared on imgur, the popular image hosting service?

Looks like a mountain with snow/ice on it.

Man, that isn't much at all, you can circle it in like 5 hours the US dwarfs it.

Might want to check your math...

 

[Wreav]

More images this week