Strange lights on dwarf planet Ceres have scientists perplexed

originally posted by: game over man
a reply to: All Seeing Eye

To think right below all of the surface of Ceres is a "bright snowball" is pretty interesting...how deep below the rock do you think the bright ice begins? A few feet? To me it looks like snow, and not ice. You can see our clouds and snow all the way from the Moon. Being this close to Ceres I would say these spots are bright white as opposed to ice.

Nasa Black Marble is from 512 miles away from Earth, so you can imagine 29,000 miles you definitely won't see any lights. Also I just realized you wouldn't see any lights at all if it was day time, so I think this Ceres image rules out lights.

Now the volcano theory, it looks like a crater so either hit from an asteroid or and extinct volcano. I don't know why it would be active in the center. Volcanos that are active are more like mountains waiting to erupt. Once they are extinct they form into craters, it doesn't look like a volcano to me.

Could it be a snowy pole on the planet?

You forget another type volcano.... cryro volcano, icy water volcano or geyser. We know they exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus:

a reply to: JadeStar

Right, but are those coming out of craters? And why is there only one on Ceres? This picture is also 29,000 miles away do you think we could see ice vapors or whatever erupting from the volcano at that distance?... We haven't discovered any bright spots on the moons in our solar system like on Ceres.

I hope its a mountain of shiny "GOLD". If so we will finally see real human exploration and colonization of our solar system!

Or Obama should come on TV and announce the Dawn mission is now classified and no further information will be released. That would get the world on about launching more stuff and force technology evolution not to mention drive Putin insane wanting to know why we classified it lol.

originally posted by: game over man
a reply to: JadeStar

Right, but are those coming out of craters? And why is there only one on Ceres? This picture is also 29,000 miles away do you think we could see ice vapors or whatever erupting from the volcano at that distance?...

NASA's Hershel space telescope discovered water vapor coming from Ceres last June.

We haven't discovered any bright spots on the moons in our solar system like on Ceres.

Really? How familiar are you with the planets and moons our solar system. There are bright spots on just about every one of them.

Google the moon Callisto for example.

originally posted by: Xeven
I hope its a mountain of shiny "GOLD". If so we will finally see real human exploration and colonization of our solar system!

We already know there's gold in asteroids. There are plans to mine them but not with humans (which would be silly anyway - like a scene out of an old sci-fi movie Outlander).


My city has one of the first asteroid mining companies on Earth

Looking at the animated series of images of Ceres released yesterday, it appears that the bright spot is still visible, when the floor of the crater is dark. This seems to argue against anything on Ceres' surface reflecting back a certain percentage of light to Dawn's camera; no light to reflect, it appears.
Is this something extending above the surface, catching the light of the Sun; a vapor plume, or the like? If so, it seems odd that the bright spot displays no vertical height, as one might expect, when it's viewed from an oblique angle, rather than straight on. This would have to be an extraordinarily compact, bright plume, if that's what it was.

originally posted by: Ross 54
Looking at the animated series of images of Ceres released yesterday, it appears that the bright spot is still visible, when the floor of the crater is dark. This seems to argue against anything on Ceres' surface reflecting back a certain percentage of light to Dawn's camera; no light to reflect, it appears.

Your interpretation is incorrect.

#1 We have no height map of Ceres (but soon will) so we don't know how high that area is. It could be a spiky peak within the crater.

#2 If you watched the NASA press conference yesterday you'd see that your question was asked and the light curve for the spot gets darker as it is shadowed by the terminator.

Is this something extending above the surface, catching the light of the Sun; a vapor plume, or the like?

Quite possibly. Stay tuned. There will be more press conferences on Ceres as Dawn gets closer in the next few weeks.

a reply to: intrptr

Next thing they will say, it's Planet X coming to collide with the Earth and the Sumerian Gods are returning LOL






"Oh, look Mom, is that the Planet X coming to hit us?"

a reply to: Ross 54
Here is the link to the photos.

www.nasa.gov...

I was wondering if the Dawn space craft can get photos of the dark side. That would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this light anomaly is "self generated". The implications of which will be, quite revealing.

Science is going to have to come up with a new title, Dwarf Planet, or, Planet Seed, remains to be "Seen".

Pins and Needles, pins and needles lol lol lol

originally posted by: Xeven
I hope its a mountain of shiny "GOLD". If so we will finally see real human exploration and colonization of our solar system!

The thing about gold, though, is that it's heavy, and would take a lot of energy to get it back to Earth where people value it. What you want to look for is rarer metals like palladium or platinum family elements like ruthenium or iridium.

a reply to: declineduser

Good morning declined user, welcome to ATS!

Next thing they will say, it's Planet X coming to collide with the Earth and the Sumerian Gods are returning LOL

You can tell thats popular when the thread title calls reflections on Ceres "strange lights".

a reply to: 2012newstart

Why do you think NASA doesn't talk about TLP on the moon? There is a whole WIKI page on it and NASA actually has people studying the phenomenon since it was physically confirmed by astronauts standing on the moon...

The TLP's most likely explanation is electrostatically levitated dust reflecting sunlight.

We see a lot of electrostatic dusting on mars as well (one of the reason the rover is still running, the dust gets grabbed off the lander's panels) and the massive dust devils hold a charge and we can see discharge where they interact with the surface.

PLEASE NOTE! THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ELECTRIC UNIVERSE MUMBO JUMBO!

a reply to: JadeStar

Your posts have been refreshing in this thread. Thank you for the constant update for users from an informed perspective

a reply to: raymundoko

What is TLP? Transactional License Program? Tactical Leadership Programme? Traffic Light Protocol? on the moon?

a reply to: raymundoko

But aren't transient lunar phenomenon (TLP's) short-lived?

These bright spots on Ceres have been observed in the same place for a while. That seems to indicate the that bright spots are objects that are more permanent, or (if they are some sort of transient/temporary phenomenon) are a much longer-lived phenomenon than what we specifically refer to as TLP.

Whatever they are, I bet the explanation would be as scientifically interesting as the theoretical explanations for the Moon's TLPs.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Yes, they are short lived, with the longest believed to be a week long event recorded by monks in the 12th century. However, that could have been a series of meteors over the course of a week which happened to explode in the upper atmosphere in front of the moon, but hey, it's debatable

I only at first thought this was a type of electrostatic event when I saw the first image, however as time has gone on, the fact it hasn't moved and with more data, I am leaning towards a highly reflective dust covered peak emerging from the crater.

The reason I put my EU disclaimer in there is they are on the JREF (International Skeptics) forums claiming this is proof of EDM on the surface of Ceres. They like to act like modern planetary and astro physics ignore electric forces in space or acting between bodies, but we've come a long way in the last few decades. Now if only the atmospheric physics community would catch up...

originally posted by: raymundoko
The reason I put my EU disclaimer in there is they are on the JREF (International Skeptics) forums claiming this is proof of EDM on the surface of Ceres. They like to act like modern planetary and astro physics ignore electric forces in space or acting between bodies, but we've come a long way in the last few decades. Now if only the atmospheric physics community would catch up...

I rub my feet on the carpet and touch a door knob...
...Proof of the Electric Universe Theory!!!

Is that what you mean?

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

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a reply to: All Seeing Eye

Also, I just noticed...
www.nasa.gov...

As the gif comes out of the sunny side, the lights are actually at the center of craters. The larger light is centered in a large crater, and just to the right, inside the same crater is another crater that is also emitting a light from its center.

I didn't see that before. Two craters, two lights. One within the other.

I'm going to go with a Dyson sphere. Looks like the shell got cracked by meteor impacts.