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Dawn Spacecraft Gets a Better Look At Ceres' Bizarre 'White Spots'
StartsWithABang writes: Since its discovery as the first asteroid more than 200 years ago, Ceres has been one of the most poorly understood objects in the Solar System as even imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope is unable to resolve very much. But NASA's Dawn mission, since moving on from Vesta, has begun to map Ceres, constructing the highest resolution global map ever, with better data to come. The greatest mystery so far are two bright white spots at the bottom of a deep crater, brighter and more reflective than anything else on the planet's surface. Right now, three leading possibilities for the origin of these features exist, with Dawn possessing the capabilities to teach us which one (if any) is correct, hopefully by the end of the year!
Don't solar panels specifically not reflect light?
That could be why they're abandoned...
For the love of all science fiction be aliens!!! How many Sci-fi stories have we all read where an asteroid/comet/artefact is floating around our Solar system and it turns out to be some uber cool alien thing that has warp drive or a stargate or whatever and off we go adventuring around the galaxy?
In fact I could even narrow the question down to how many sci-fi stories have we all read where the artefact involved Ceres?
So while if I had to bet I would go with ice, soil disturbance, tectonic, or maybe even something a little cool like magnetic. But I want aliens!
No need to click - the "three leading possibilities" are exactly what you guessed:
- Ice
- Dry Ice
- Different rocks that have a different albedo
If you only guessed "ice" and "different rocks" you still get full credit.
Bonobos are pretty smart, and a rough estimate might put them about 5 million years behind us on the evolutionary scale.
They are not behind, they are right next to us on another path, and we have no way of telling where they'll go.
This doesn't mean it's work spending billions of dollars to get more. We can manufacture them here, cheaper than going out into orbit, much less another planet.
But these are SPACE DIAMONDS, and clearly far more likely to get you laid than those silly artificial diamonds.
Message from Ceres to Pluto
Bonobos just figured out that civilization is a lot of extra work to go through for fucking and eating. Especially when you can just fuck and eat without it.
Yes, they do, and no, they're not.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin