Bright Spots On Ceres

Image Credit: NASA

Bright surface features on the dwarf planet Ceres known as faculae were first discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in 2015. This mosaic of one such feature, Cerealia Facula, combines images obtained from altitudes as low as 22 miles (35 km) above Ceres' surface. The mosaic is overlain on a topography model based on images obtained during Dawn's low altitude mapping orbit (240 miles or 385 km altitude).

Source / Image Courtesy

This illustration shows how the features in the spectrum of the light reflected from the bright spots is alternately red and blue shifted slightly compared to the average light of Ceres as it rotates.