Dawn at Ceres Thread

[Frida Space]

Has the nature of the bright regions been elucidated yet?

The discovery of a transient haze above them strongly hints at ice, but we will have to wait for Dawn to get lower and the GRaND instrument to start its real, detailed science campaign to have anything more than hints.

[Exoscientist]

Just released today:

Bob Clark

[lajoswinkler]

The discovery of a transient haze above them strongly hints at ice, but we will have to wait for Dawn to get lower and the GRaND instrument to start its real, detailed science campaign to have anything more than hints.

It does not hint at ice. Traces of gaseous water are almost certainly coming out of the hole, but ice is an ephemeral thing on the surface of Ceres. It will quickly sublimate.

These must be salty deposits that have accumulated there over the eons of very mild puffing. Obviously there's something churning inside that rarely comes out as very rarified puff of salt particles, perhaps some water ice particles and of course gaseous water. Water ice sublimates away in a matter of weeks at most, water gas dissipates, being pushed by the solar wind.

It has to be very mild and it has to be traces, because Ceres is so old. Anything fast enough to impress us in a few months is not a sustainable process in the terms of billions of years.

BTW here are the synthesized images with the very important caption writing on them.

5x vertical exaggerated CGI height maps with actual photographs pasted on top of it.

Edited August 6, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Frida Space]

^ oops yea, I had forgot about the particulate component. Thanks.

Just released today:

Yes, I had published it just a few posts above.

[Frida Space]

Dawn has reached HAMO. Average altitude is 1470 km. Sciencing will begin as scheduled in a few days.

[-ctn-]

Hurray!

I keep thinking, is there a single place any of the data is being publicly released? Or any articles about Ceres being posted with updated information? Or are we only getting pictures until it gets to the optimum altitude for the "GRAND" instrument?

[Frida Space]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I know there's nothing like real-time data publication because that would allow other scientists to "steal" the data and publish papers before the actual scientists on the mission do (see here). However, usually raw data (imagery included) is all uploaded on the Planetary Data System (PDS) approx. 1 year after its received. But I could very well be mistaken. Also, I think there's no general rule, each mission has its own publication policies (see all the Rosetta-OSIRIS chaos).

[lajoswinkler]

View of our flat top mountain from almost directly up.

[Newt]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I know there's nothing like real-time data publication because that would allow other scientists to "steal" the data and publish papers before the actual scientists on the mission do (see here).

From talking to a person I know on the Dawn team, they are being unusually conservative in their releases of data and hypotheses, even between members of the science team. Often there is some care when releasing data, but not generally to the extent that is present here.

[Frida Space]

First images from HAMO. www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn-sends-sharper-scenes-from-ceres

I recall reading somewhere that it could be a pingo or something. Is that still geologically plausible?

[MinimumSky5]

First images from HAMO. www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn-sends-sharper-scenes-from-ceres

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19631.jpg

I recall reading somewhere that it could be a pingo or something. Is that still geologically plausible?

Just so there is no confusion, a Pingu is a cartoon penguin, and a Pingo is an ice structure formed during the freezing of permafrost. The thing is, if it is a pingo, why aren't there more of them on Ceres?

[LordFerret]

First images from HAMO. www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn-sends-sharper-scenes-from-ceres

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19631.jpg

I recall reading somewhere that it could be a pingo or something. Is that still geologically plausible?

If you'll go back... don't recall if it's in this thread or perhaps another... the first initial image displayed of this - my comment was: 'it reminds me of a frost heave'.

Edit:

Found it, back in the beginning of July.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107824-Dawn-at-Ceres-Thread?p=2056662&viewfull=1#post2056662

Edited August 25, 2015 by LordFerret
Didn't I say that???

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not sure if it could be some sort of a pingo. The hypothesis is interesting. I'm more inclined to think it's a cryovolcano forming. Time will tell.

Here are two new photos by HAMO instrument from this new, lower orbit.

Observe the apparent total lack of craters on the slope and in the center of this formation that's probably a crater. It's obviously very young. I'd say that, when something large enough hits Ceres' surface, ices inside cause it to get disfigured.

Other, way more interesting image. Formation in the upper left corner. At first, to some it might look like a dent, a flow towards up-left, but look at the shadows on the edge. This is a bulge and it's flowing towards down-right. To me, it looks like an ancient "glacier", icy dirt material that spilled out and came to a halt as the surface ices sublimed, forming a crust.

[Exoscientist]

Which came first, the crater or the mountain?

http://dawnblog.jpl.nasa.gov/2015/08/

Bob Clark

[grawl]

Common sense is telling me the 2 are closely correlated. So crater->soil "boils" and create a volcano, or volcano->matter is expelled, creating a "hole" in the soil, collapsing and thus forming this crater.

But there is no place for common sense in this far-away word

Can the impact of a meteor "push" or "boil" some matter and create that mountain ?

PS: am I the only one who is getting a headache from watching this gif repetitively? The transition is too brutal ! I'd like a left-right-left-right animation better.

Edited September 6, 2015 by grawl

[Frida Space]

A mosaic of Occator crater + bright spots (made by assembling 2 images, I'm guessing at different exposures since the spots are so bright)

[PB666]

Is that a crater or a plateau, looks to me like an escarpment of some sort, there are craters inside casting shadows in the reverse direction.

This must be Ceres Version of a volcano.

[Streetwind]

What a great image! Finally it is completely resolved

[Guest]

What a great image! Finally it is completely resolved

We still have a LAMO phase to go through, 35m resolution. Right now we're in the HAMO phase at 140m resolution.

[LordFerret]

A mosaic of Occator crater + bright spots (made by assembling 2 images, I'm guessing at different exposures since the spots are so bright)

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/images/largesize/PIA19889_hires.jpg

It appears as though there is fracturing of the crater bottom, which is what I make of the 'black' lines. Also, the center of the 'white spot' appears to be a pillar of some sort - or a pit?

[Streetwind]

We still have a LAMO phase to go through, 35m resolution. Right now we're in the HAMO phase at 140m resolution.

I'm aware... I was referring to the fact that for the first time we have an image that shows more than just a diffuse blob of bright light. The LAMO pass will of course increase the detail resolution, but this one is enough to analyze and explain the phenomenon in a fairly exhaustive fashion (exogeologists are used to working with much less).

[PB666]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34403738

New analyses

[Frida Space]

Dawn has started descending to its final orbit (LAMO), at 380 km from Ceres. It will start mapping the dwarf planet's surface at a spatial resolution of 35 m/pix in mid-December.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/2015/10/26/dawn-heads-toward-final-orbit

[-ctn-]

35m/pixel. Can't wait to see those resolution images...

[CptRichardson]

Wow. You can see hints of that same bright stuff all over the place now. A pair of faint dots to the right of the main occurence in the faded crater, another set down below that set next to the edge of the image, another grouping on the crater inside a crater up and to the left of the big crater... This raises many more questions.