Any theories on the mysterious features of Ceres?!

[sedativechunk]

Has anyone been keeping up with the news on NASA's Dawn mission at Ceres?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewfrancis/2015/06/23/ceres-has-a-mysterious-lonely-mountain-but-no-dragon/

In the past day they just released images of what looks like a 3 mile high pyramid on Ceres. This is added on top of the already spooky bright lights on the planet. Does anyone have any good explanations of what this stuff can be?!

I am not a crackpot alien conspiracy theorist. But this stuff is getting pretty tough to explain anymore. No one has came up with a good explanation for the bright white spots including NASA. In fact, they even released a public poll asking people what they thought the features was:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/dawn/world_ceres/

I'm finding it hard to accept that this is "salt" or "ice". Haven't we seen such things on our own moon? And the moon does not look this abnormally bright. I'd really like to see darkside images of Ceres to see what the bright spots are. I am speculating possibly volcanic activity. That would be the most "logical" thing to me before saying something is living there...

[Nibb31]

It's not a pyramid, it's a cone. There are plenty of explanations for natural formation of a cone: volcanism, impacts, etc...

As for the white spots, it's either something highly reflective, or something that actually emits light.

In any case, we've been discussing it here already:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107824-Dawn-at-Ceres-Thread

[Fel]

I am not a crackpot alien conspiracy theorist. But this stuff is getting pretty tough to explain anymore. No one has came up with a good explanation for the bright white spots including NASA. In fact, they even released a public poll asking people what they thought the features was:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/dawn/world_ceres/

Why does every crackpot alien conspiracy theorist begin their paragraphs with "I am not a crackpot alien conspiracy theorist" ;p

*Nevermind, it's just a joke and the way you write that follows their format precisely.

Edited June 25, 2015 by Fel