Closer images of Cere's "Bright Spots" released

originally posted by: Tardacus
so that`s "suppose" to be the same spot?
The same spot that glowed like a billion watt halogen light from a gazillion miles away but up close it doesn`t even reflect enough light to cause lens flare?
yeah ok.

By the way..do you know how bright something has to be to generate a lens flare? This isn't a J J Abrahms movie, this is the real world. I don't even think a full moon generates a lens flare (but i could be wrong)

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: Tardacus
so that`s "suppose" to be the same spot?
The same spot that glowed like a billion watt halogen light from a gazillion miles away but up close it doesn`t even reflect enough light to cause lens flare?
yeah ok.

By the way..do you know how bright something has to be to generate a lens flare? This isn't a J J Abrahms movie, this is the real world. I don't even think a full moon generates a lens flare (but i could be wrong)

I don't think overall brightness has anything to do with it, just the relative difference in dynamic range (with respect to shutter speed and ISO).

Still, the crater walls still intrigue me, they look fairly new (in geological terms).

originally posted by: MarsIsRed

originally posted by: 3danimator2014

originally posted by: Tardacus
so that`s "suppose" to be the same spot?
The same spot that glowed like a billion watt halogen light from a gazillion miles away but up close it doesn`t even reflect enough light to cause lens flare?
yeah ok.

By the way..do you know how bright something has to be to generate a lens flare? This isn't a J J Abrahms movie, this is the real world. I don't even think a full moon generates a lens flare (but i could be wrong)

I don't think overall brightness has anything to do with it, just the relative difference in dynamic range (with respect to shutter speed and ISO).

Im not sure about that, since a lens flare has nothing to do with the film, its just internal lens reflections.

a reply to: 3danimator2014

But amplified by equipment settings... I'm not sure though - I'll happily stand to be corrected on this!

originally posted by: MarsIsRed
a reply to: 3danimator2014

But amplified by equipment settings... I'm not sure though - I'll happily stand to be corrected on this!

Same, happy to be wrong and corrected. I cant see how it will be amplified by the film if there is nothing to be amplified. And since the film comes after the lens..

Actually, if the flare is present and is very faint, then yes the settings will have a bearing. I suppose technically, any light source is bright enough to create internal reflections. So you are more right than me i think. Technically

a reply to: Ghost147

Don't laugh, but I see lines which could be roads.

Why do we assume that aliens are similar in size to us? What if it's like that twilight zone episode "The Little People"? Those aliens were much smaller. Why should we assume that all intelligent life forms must be a certain size? What if there are intelligent aliens that are the size of the moon? What if there are intelligent aliens the size of ants?

It's still possible intelligent life is there on Ceres.

originally posted by: primespickle
a reply to: Ghost147

Don't laugh, but I see lines which could be roads.

Why do we assume that aliens are similar in size to us? What if it's like that twilight zone episode "The Little People"? Those aliens were much smaller. Why should we assume that all intelligent life forms must be a certain size? What if there are intelligent aliens that are the size of the moon? What if there are intelligent aliens the size of ants?

It's still possible intelligent life is there on Ceres.

Possible? Maybe.

So unlikely that we can ignore the possibility? Yes.

Lets assume those are roads and the that is an alien city...where are the bright lights? The shining beacon we saw from further away? Do you know how many things look like roads in nature from far? In fact, they originally thought the canals on Mars were roads and that there was alien life on Mars.

Just face it, its not aliens. But abate your dissapointment for a second and see how incredible this photo is and how far our knowledge of our solar system has come in the last 10 years. This, plus Pluto images, Rosetta in orbit around a comet, the amazing Cassinni mission...these are all super exciting. It doesn't have to be aliens to be astounding.

To quote Tim Minchin:

Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?

originally posted by: Tardacus
so that`s "suppose" to be the same spot?
The same spot that glowed like a billion watt halogen light from a gazillion miles away but up close it doesn`t even reflect enough light to cause lens flare?
yeah ok.

The picture was created using different camera exposures so the spot would not "flare".

The Spot was so bright in those early images of it to cause the light blooms and "flares" in those pictures because Ceres is so dark (black like coal) that the shutter on Dawn's cameras need to be open for a long enough exposure time to capture enough light from dark Ceres to be able to see its craters and other surface features.

Due to these long exposure times that are required, many relatively bright reflective areas (and there were many of the in the images from Ceres, not just this one, which is just the largest) would return so much light to the camera that those bright spots would bloom up like we saw in the earlier images.

This image was made differently. They took two different images with two different camera exposure settings -- one longer exposure where Ceres was bright enough to see the surface features (but where the bright spot would be TOO bright), and one where the setting were low enough to be able to see detail of the spot (but everything else around the spot would have been too dark to see).

They then took the parts of both images that were at the proper exposure for seeing detail, and put those images together to make the pictures we see now.

originally posted by: wildespace

Definitely looks like salt / mineral deposits.

or, to my untrained eye... a huge deposit of slush sitting atop the existing terrain (the feature construed as concentric rings/layers)

imagine a huge chunk of ice, a slush-ball, landing on the surface ... but not at a 1,000 mph or more velocity
the slush-ball hit the surface at under 100mph so a dome of ice results with no splatter effect from a high impact, just the meandering & soft edges of a slush-ball ....

try dropping a wet snowball onto a clean sidewalk, I think the Ceres bright spot will mimic the earth bound experiment of comparison well enough to put aside the different gravity/speed factors

getting the precise consistency of the slush-ball would take maybe 3 attempts


just my 2¢ ...tyvm

a reply to: St Udio
I think the problem with that hypothesis is that they think a slushy icy snowball would have sublimated into space by now.

That's why they are looking at it being mostly salts, because salt deposits would be longer-term and not sublimate away the way water ice would.

I'd still go with my earlier guess of a metal (or maybe a metal salt?) which is revealed after the carbonaceous surface covering it is spalled off by a collision with some other object. Some space rocks are likely a very pure grade ore (not exposed to oxygen or other weathering as on Earth), so further investigation should show that some are worth trying to mine.

What's needed is another probe with a rover to land on it with a drill or other abrasion tool.

What about it being a reflective material ?

Something such as glass-sand... maybe caused by asteroid impacts... or hot magma outflows cooling into a glass-like material ?

www.jpl.nasa.gov...

from today =)

originally posted by: egidio88
www.jpl.nasa.gov...

from today =)

Oh wow. Awesome. Thanks mate

originally posted by: dogstar23
a reply to: digitalbluco

You guys don't see it?

Just kidding

I wish we could see these up close with a home telescope! It's awesome to be able to see these features on a moon which before all we know was "it's ice" or "it's rock" - For a good portion of my life, I actually believed many of the bodies in the solar system were bland, essentially featureless spheres of nothing interesting. This is awesome - and more amazing discoveries to come in our future!

You shouldn't be kidding. I see what appears to be the remnants of a rebound crater, that didn't, rebound completely. I would guess the impator actually penetrated the thin layer of rock and dust.

a reply to: BelowLowAnnouncement

it looks like some kind of geological process to my layman eyes.

Well, thankfully we can turn to my expert eyes for insight... I can clearly see the remains of a Proteus model Death Star, covered by asteroid dust which has accumulated over the aeons since being whupped by the Jedi, approximately four hundred thousand years ago (during the infamous 'Sack of Phobos'..)

Has anyone noticed that small (should be about 75-150m Ø) dome at the smaller bright spot on the east?
I am wondering if that is a small scale copy of the main spot..

Update

New idea for the cause of the bright spot:

The brightest area on Ceres, located in the mysterious Occator Crater, has the highest concentration of carbonate minerals ever seen outside Earth, according to a new study from scientists on NASA's Dawn mission. The study, published online in the journal Nature, is one of two new papers about the makeup of Ceres.
...
De Sanctis' study finds that the dominant mineral of this bright area is sodium carbonate, a kind of salt found on Earth in hydrothermal environments. This material appears to have come from inside Ceres, because an impacting asteroid could not have delivered it.

Phys.org, June 29, 2016 - Recent hydrothermal activity may explain Ceres' brightest area

Well of course the Occator Crater (say that four times fast!) Is going to be the brightest spot! You've encased it in carbonate! Duh!

So somebody spill baking soda? No wait. Ceres is puking baking soda! So much for a mining operation. I am sure this is not the last we will hear about the OC.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Awesome. Add some vinegar and you get a blast of CO2. You could jet across the Solar System with it.

a reply to: Phage

Ha! The biggest "volcano" science fair experiment ever!

The new results also find ammonia-bearing salts—ammonium chloride and/or ammonium bicarbonate—in Occator Crater. The carbonate finding further reinforces Ceres' connection with icy worlds in the outer solar system. Ammonia, in addition to sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate found at Occator, has been detected in the plumes of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn known for its geysers erupting from fissures in its surface. Such materials make Ceres interesting for the study of astrobiology.

(same source)

So it may have moved inwards from the outer solar system. Huh? Maybe the 'blasting across the universe' is not so far fetched after all!