The first colored image of the surface of Ceres , a dwarf planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, has just been made public during the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union.
Taken by NASA's Dawn mission, the images exaggerate the compositional differences in the "skin" of this 950 kilometer diameter ball . According to scientists, the color hues tell us that Ceres has undergone an active history since it formed along with the rest of the Solar System, about 4.5 billion years ago.
Dawn has also captured very bright spots in the northern hemisphere of the dwarf planet. It is still unknown that it produces them, but experts say that they may correspond to concentrations of salts, since it is unlikely that ice will form in a rocky body, like this one, devoid of air . In any case, they contain a highly reflective material.
Starting April 23, when it gets closer to 13,500 kilometers from the surface, the spacecraft will get more data on our mysterious neighbor .
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA
