back to article Ceres' salty history hints at bright spot origin

When the Dawn mission's first photographs arrived from Ceres, everyone from scientist to conspiracist got excited about the bright spots. Now, scientists say the spots are a kind of salt that hint at subsurface water ice on the object. An analysis led by boffins from the Max Planck Institute concludes that the strong …

  1. Mikel

    Caves

    Patiently waiting for the new highest rez photos. I think I can make out some caves in this one. Astro-spelunking: where the REAL treasure is to be found.

  2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Fascinating stuff from several probes recently, Rosetta and Philae, Dawn and New Horizon have really been a treat to follow. Big thumbs up to the boffins who make this possible

  3. x 7

    "the magnesium sulfate called hexahydrite."

    You mean Magnesium sulphate hexahydrate...........easier to understand

    1. Ilmarinen
      Boffin

      Churnalisum

      "You mean Magnesium sulphate hexahydrate...........easier to understand"

      I'd just checked the NASA link to see what they called it. They wrote:

      "Ceres has more than 130 bright areas, and most of them are associated with impact craters. Study authors, led by Andreas Nathues at Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany, write that the bright material is consistent with a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrite. A different type of magnesium sulfate is familiar on Earth as Epsom salt."

      I guess the Pax Plank bods are actual Boffins, so they must just have pitched their press release to arts graduates types. And their words just got parroted here in the best traditions of "churnalisum".

  4. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Different from Earth

    When sea water evaporates on Earth, the first mineral to drop out is gypsum, CaSO4.2H2O

  5. Youngone Silver badge
    Happy

    Life? Not as we know it

    Even if there's water ice, it will be too cold for any actual wet stuff I'm assuming, so not likely to be anything like life.

    I make that comment just because I've decided that anytime one of these amazing probes send back unexpected images from other worlds I do the "Oooh, could be life there" dance.

    Then I think about it and get discouraged.

  6. swm

    Ceres' orbit is nearly circular

    "Ceres could have been born in the outer solar system"

    If this is true then how did Ceres' orbit get so circular? Is there a gravitational damping effect when a body plows through a bunch of matter like the asteroid belt?

    Just wondering.

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