NASA Dawn Reveals Recent Changes in Ceres’ Surface

Observations of Ceres have detected recent variations in its surface, revealing that the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system is a dynamic body that continues to evolve and change.

NASA’s Dawn mission has found recently exposed deposits that give us new information on the materials in the crust and how they are changing, according to two papers published March 14 in Science Advances that document the new findings.

Observations obtained by the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) on the Dawn spacecraft previously found water ice in a dozen sites on Ceres. The new study revealed the abundance of ice on the northern wall of Juling Crater, a crater 12 miles (20 kilometers) in diameter. The new observations, conducted from April through October 2016, show an increase in the amount of ice on the crater wall.

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Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/ASI/INAF

This view from NASA’s Dawn mission shows where ice has been detected in the northern wall of Ceres’ Juling Crater, which is in almost permanent shadow.

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Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/ASI/INAF

This view from NASA’s Dawn mission shows the floor of Ceres’ Juling Crater. The crater floor shows evidence of the flow of ice and rock, similar to rock glaciers in Earth’s polar regions.

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Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/ASI/INAF

This view from NASA’s Dawn mission shows Ceres’ tallest mountain, Ahuna Mons, 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) high and 11 miles (17 kilometers) wide. This is one of the few sites on Ceres at which a significant amount of sodium carbonate has been found, shown in green and red colors in the lower right image.

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More than 300 bright spots have been located on the surface of Ceres. Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission say the bright material indicates the dwarf planet is an active, evolving world.