The short answer is….we don’t know. It could still be a lot of different things, but take a look for yourself and see if you can figure it out. Here are the possibilities: Ceres is soon to make a descent to its lowest orbit for final mapping, and will be orbiting only 375 Km above the surface. This will give the highest resolution data yet, and hopefully shed some light on the mystery of Occator crater. What do you think?
The mysteries of the Occator crater on Ceres have continued to puzzle astronomers and the public, even as we have seen increasing resolution in recent photos. The latest photos show a resolution of 140 meters per pixel and reveal striking details, though the jury is still out on what exactly the bright material is and where it came from. It seems incredibly likely that the bright spots are ices of some sort, maybe even water ice, since Ceres is a water-rich body, and may have more water than Earth! One hypothesis is that Ceres has a subsurface layer of water,...
Since the Dawn spacecraft arrived at Ceres in March of this year, it has slowly been taking high resolution maps of the surface from several different altitudes. After each successive mapping run it moves into a closer orbit of the icy world for a higher resolution glimpse. After two successful mapping runs, we finally have a full high resolution topographic map of Ceres, revealing its cratered surface in unprecedented detail. With a quick look at the map, a couple of things become apparent immediately. For one, the surface craters are quite deep, and consistent with an icy crust. The size...
As is the case with any final approach to a new object, the early images, with their horrible resolution, pixelated appearance, and possibly false features due to processing, lead to significant speculation on what we will see as the craft approaches. It was the same a few months ago with Ceres. I personally love the blurry images. It’s a mystery waiting to be solved, and we see it unfold as we move ever closer to our destination. It also reminds me of the early days of the internet I grew up with, using a good old 28.8K modem and waiting 2...
Since it entered Saturnian orbit on July 1st, 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has changed our view of Saturn and its moons. It is a dynamic gas giant with unique and fascinating moons that have their own characteristics that make them seem more like small, rocky, planets than moons of a gas giant. Cassini has been delivering amazing science for over a decade, and it’s next journey lies in a polar orbit of Saturn, where it will dive through Saturn’s rings, giving the most detailed and close up views of the tiny ice particles that compose them. Before this journey, Cassini...
A couple of days ago, the still-active Cassini spacecraft orbiting around Saturn performed a flyby of the small Moon Hyperion, taking high resolution photos of the surface, and showing the sponge-like surface of the moon in a different light. Hyperion is a moderate 250 kilometers wide, yet it doesn’t tug very hard on Cassini. Performing measurements of its surface gravity, Cassini has shown that the moon is mostly empty space, similar to a pumice stone on Earth. The odd shapes of the craters are thought to be a result of this. When an impactor hits Hyperion, it blows the material...
The Moon has clearly seen some stuff. It’s visibly heavily cratered across it’s surface, which has remained unchanged since it’s surface solidified 4.2 Billion years ago. Think about that – the Moon has been the same, with the exception of cratering, for 4 Billion years. This is a stark contrast to the Earth, whose erosion and tectonic activity cause the crust to change on scales of a few hundred million years. Astronomers have worked hard to learn about the early solar system by looking at the Moon and its cratering patterns. Most of the visible craters on the Moon are...
Tis the season, as they say. This year is a good one for space missions with the March arrival of the Dawn spacecraft at Ceres and the July fly-by of Pluto by new horizons. Dawn made history by being the first ever spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet, and new horizons will provide the first ever pictures of the surface of Pluto in unprecedented detail. I can barely contain my excitement, after having watched the launch of New Horizons live on NASA TV in 2006. I thought about what life would be like in 2015 and what Pluto would look...
We have found evidence of ancient impacts all across the Earth, from the famous Chixulub crater in Mexico to the Sudbury Basin a little bit closer to my home. From Space the remains look nothing like craters, millions of years of sediment and growth hide the massive regions from obvious detection, but signs remain of these massive events, even after millions of years. This week, what is possibly the largest impact crater basin ever discovered has been found in central Australia. And it is thought to originate from the breakup of a massive 400 Km asteroid into two pieces that...
With the MESSENGER probe set to crash into Mercury this month, it’s nice to look back on some of the finest data that it gathered during its tenure orbiting the smallest planet of the solar system. The image shows the Caloris Basin, the largest impact basin on Mercury and one of the largest in the solar system. The result of a massive asteroid impact during the early days of the solar system, the 1,500 Km wide crater was filled with lava aeons ago when Mercury was geologically active (seen in orange). Large impacts have punctured the surface of the basin since...
