New images of the dwarf planet Ceres, taken from 2,700 miles above by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, show the surface of this mysterious world in sharper detail than ever before. The new images are of the brightest spots, which are located in a crater about 55 miles across. The largest bright area in this crater is […]
Tag Archives | Dwarf planet
Newly discovered dwarf planet hints at a much larger not-yet-seen planet
2012 VP113, a newly discovered dwarf planet (pictured) in the distant Oort cloud region of our Solar System indicates the potential presence of an enormous as yet undiscovered planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth. Details of the discovery of 2012 VP113 and its intriguing orbital characteristics appear in Nature. Our Solar […]
Water vapor plumes observed erupting from dwarf planet
The Herschel space observatory has used its far-infrared capabilities to capture a clear spectral signature of water vapor venting from the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. Ceres is classified as a dwarf planet, a body bigger than an asteroid and smaller than a planet. “This is the first time water vapor has been […]