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Mystery solved: Ceres’ white spots are salt! (Synopsis) [Starts With A Bang]
“You are the salt of the earth. But remember that salt is useful when in association, but useless in isolation.” -Israelmore Ayivor
When NASA’s Dawn spacecraft began photographing Ceres, one big surprise emerged: the presence of a spectacularly and unusually bright spot at the bottom of Occator crater. As we got closer, we discovered it was a series of spots in the lowlands of the crater bed, and that there were other suspicious, smaller bright spots elsewhere on the surface.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, converted from Nature Publishing Group press’s YouTube channel.
The science is now in, and it’s not self-luminous, nor is it ice of any type, but rather these are salt crystals, deposited and brought to the bottom by water that solidifies on the crater floor.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA, from A. Natheus et al. (2015), Nature 528, 237–240.
Here’s the science of what we know, along with the new questions the discovery raises!
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2015/12/09/mystery-solved-ceres-white-spots-are-salt-synopsis/
