Newly created color map of Ceres reveals its diversity of surface

A colored new map of Ceres has been recently been created which revealed the diversity of the planet's surface and also that it was once an active body.

The Dawn mission made history on March 6 as the first spacecraft to reach a dwarf planet, and the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial targets.

Previously, Dawn studied giant asteroid Vesta from 2011 to 2012, uncovering numerous insights about its geology and history. While Vesta is a dry body, Ceres is believed to be 25 percent water ice by mass.

By comparing Vesta and Ceres, scientists hope to gain a better understanding of the formation of the solar system. Ceres' surface was heavily cratered, as expected, but appears to have fewer large craters than scientists anticipated.

It also has a pair of very bright neighboring spots in its northern hemisphere. More detail will emerge after the spacecraft begins its first intensive science phase on April 23, from a distance of 8,400 miles from the surface, said Martin Hoffmann, investigator on the Dawn framing camera team, based at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany.

Based on observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, planetary scientists have identified 10 bright regions on Ceres' surface.

One pair of bright spots, by far the brightest visible marks on Ceres, appears to be located in a region that is similar in temperature to its surroundings. But a different bright feature corresponds to a region that is cooler than the rest of Ceres' surface.

The origins of Ceres' bright spots, which have captivated the attention of scientists and the public alike, remain unknown. It appears the brightest pair was located in a crater 57 miles (92 kilometers) wide. As Dawn gets closer to the surface of Ceres, better-resolution images will become available.