Mysterious spot on asteroid dwarf planet

Ceres – a dwarf planet famous for its ice-geysers, and the closest of its kind to Earth – has baffled scientists with images of a flickering white spot on its surface as the Dawn space telescope rapidly approaches. The images taken by the NASA spacecraft were released earlier this week, but experts still cannot identify what the flashing object may be.

The only thing that scientists know for certain about the intriguing mystery is that something on Ceres is reflecting more sunlight than the rest of its surface. More detailed speculation will have to wait until the Dawn spacecraft draws close enough to produce more focused pictures of its destination.

Ceres – the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the only object in the solar system classified simultaneously as a dwarf planet and an asteroid – excited the team of scientists who discovered last year that the tiny planet is covered by a large amount of water ice. Solar energy heats the water and blasts it into space in the form of water vapor, a phenomenon that had been previously observed on Jupiter’s moon Europa and other objects in the outer solar system. This is the first time water vapor has been positively identified on a world in the asteroid belt, and suggests that Ceres has an atmosphere.

If all goes according to plan, the Dawn spacecraft will enter into orbit around Ceres on March 6. However, it should get close enough to the dwarf planet to send back clearer images within a few weeks, perhaps helping to solve the mystery of the flashing white spot. Ceres is 590 miles (950 kilometers) across, or roughly the size of Texas.

The $466 million spacecraft left the Earth in 2007 and has already relayed information about Vesta, the second-largest object in the asteroid belt. Scientists hypothesize that almost a fourth of Ceres’ total mass is made up of water, mostly in a frozen form. If this is true, then the dwarf planet could contain even more fresh water than is found on Earth.

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