What is Ceres? Ceres was the first dwarf planet discovered by NASA which created the foundation for the mission of Dawn. So What’s Dawn? “Dawn is a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. After the spacecraft arrives and enters into orbit around the dwarf planet, it will study the intriguing world in great detail. Ceres, with a diameter of 590 miles (950 kilometers), is the largest object in the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.” (http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn-gets-closer-views-of-ceres/index.html#.VNOZpJ3F-Ag)
The dwarf planet Ceres is about the size of Texas, the largest known object in the Asteroid Belt. You may be wondering what makes Ceres so special. Well, NASA ‘s Dawn came within 90,000 miles of Ceres on February 4th, capturing something that caught their eye. There was a white spot found on Ceres in the image which led to the speculation of water vapor plumes on the planet. If this proves to be true, that means “Ceres could harbor internal heat that produces volcanoes.” However, since Ceres is so far from the sun, that would mean the volcanoes are frozen, something known as “Cryovolcanoes.” If this theory proves to be true, then that could also mean there is a frozen ocean on or under the planets surface. If you can’t yet catch on to the excitement, frozen water means ice and ice means water, which evidently means LIFE. (http://www.phactual.com/countdown-to-ceres-what-nasa-knows-so-far-about-the-dwarf-planet/)
The mission of Dawn can help prove this theory true, and if it does, then our future holds some very fascinating new findings. Is our world more than we think? Is there life beyond our knowledge or capacity of imagination? Do people even care? These questions emerge every single time I read up on NASA findings and I hope I can enlighten you each week on new exciting news!
While reading up on this topic and getting a better understanding of Ceres, I also came across interesting social media posts regarding the topic. If you #Ceres numerous tweets of updates and facts come up as well as instagram pictures and explanations, also including Giffs. To access this, simply follow- NASA_Dawn on any social media network.
For more updates and information regarding NASA, follow them on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/#!/NASA
NASA 2015 