Unusual bright reflections spotted on Ceres
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.028675
The Guardian : NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is traveling toward Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt, and is taking pictures of the dwarf planet as it approaches. Some of those recent images have revealed unexpectedly bright reflections from the surface. The brightest spot is reflecting about 40% of the light hitting it. Ice is known to account for roughly one quarter of Ceres’s mass, so it is likely that the reflection is caused by patches of exposed ice. Normally the ice is contained below the surface, so its exposure was probably the result of the impact of other asteroids. As Dawn approaches Ceres and the resolution of its photographs improves, if ice is the cause of the reflection, the amount of light being reflected should increase to nearly 100%.
