When the Dawn mission was in its planning stages, Ceres was considered an asteroid. But in 2006, a year before the mission launched, the International Astronomical Union formed a new class of solar system objects known as dwarf planets, and since by definition a dwarf planet is spherical and travels in an orbit around the Sun, Ceres fit that definition perfectly.
But since it’s located in the Asteroid Belt, we still tend to think of Ceres as an asteroid. So, how does Ceres compare to other asteroids?
Dr. Paul Schenk, who is a participating scientist on the Dawn mission, recently put together some graphics on his website and the one above compares Ceres to other asteroids that we’ve visited with spacecraft.
Of course, Ceres is bigger (it’s the biggest object in the Asteroid Belt) and more spherical than the other asteroids. When it comes right down to it, Ceres doesn’t look much like an asteroid at all!
“Ceres is most similar in size to several of Saturn’s icy moons and may be similar internally as well, being composed of 25% water ice by mass,” Schenk noted on his website.
And water is one of the most interesting and mysterious aspects of Ceres. A year ago, the Herschel space telescope discovered water vapor around Ceres, and the vapor could be emanating from water plumes — much like those that are on Saturn’s moon Enceladus – or it could be from cryovolcanism from geysers or icy volcano.
“The water vapor question is one of the most interesting things we will look for,” Schenk told Universe Today. “What is its source, what does it indicate about the interior and activity level within Ceres? Is Ceres active, very ancient, or both? Does it go back to the earliest Solar System? Those are the questions we hope to answer with Dawn.”
Some scientists also think Ceres may have an ocean and possibly an atmosphere, which makes Dawn’s arrival at Ceres in March one of the most exciting planetary events of 2015, in addition to New Horizon’s arrival at Pluto.
“Since we don’t know why the water vapor venting has happened, or even if it continues, it’s hard to say much more than that,” Schenk said via email, “but it is theoretically possible that some liquid water still exists within Ceres. Dawn will try to determine if that is true.”
One of the possibilities that has been discussed is that if the water vapor is confirmed, Ceres could potentially host microbial life. I asked Schenk what other factors would have to be present in order for that to have occurred?
“The presence of carbon molecules is often regarded as necessary for life,” he replied, “and we think we see that on the surface spectroscopically in the form of carbonates and clays. So, I think the questions will be, whether there is actually liquid water of any kind, whether the carbon compounds are just a surface coating or in the interior, and whether Ceres has ever been warm. If those are true then some sort of prebiotic or biotic activity is in play.”
Since we do not know the answer to any of these questions yet, Schenk says Dawn’s visit to Ceres should be interesting!
On thing of note is that Dawn is now closing in on Ceres and just today, the team released the best image we have yet of Ceres, which you can see in our article here.
Read more of Schenk’s article, “Year of the ‘Dwarves’: Ceres and Pluto Get Their Due.”
Keep tabs on the Dawn mission by following Universe Today, or see the Dawn mission website.
How does Ceres have a subsurface ocean or cryovolcanism for that matter without a huge planet or satellite tugging on it and flexing it? Isn’t this the known mechanism so far for worlds like Enceladus, Europa, etc? Curious.
I thought of the same thing. Perhaps radioactive decay.
Or the exhaust from an alien outpost.
feb 12th 2008 at about 21.26 whilst observing the moon ,thru my skywatcher telescope 5in I saw what appeared to be, streaks of light and darkened shadows moving around in my fov, on thinking my eyelash was in the way of the eyepiece , I took my eye of and proceeded to put it back on the eyepiece on moving a little a reasonably sized asteroid came right into my vision! adrenalin pumping I followed it , I was describing it to myself as it was rotating slowly, I was saying its grey potatoish shaped, I could see this indentation in it which occupied the top half like what I would describe as a plateau in this there was two hills / humps to the right hand side of it at the backside I say humps hills its all dependant on what size it was, but I see feature like this on the moon and their big all the time it was tumbling, when it got back around to this bit im describing of to the left hand side of it I could clearly see a crater near the left hand edge of the indentation it kept turning every time, it got back to this bit, I would hurridly say two humps right hand side crater ,at left hand side sort of twice as long as it was wide theres that crater god I see craters like that on the moon ,that are miles in diameter I just kept it dead centre and steady explaining what it looked like then suddenly may be twenty secs after I first saw it I banged into the side of my open window frame on pulling mmy scope to the other side I couldn’t see it I searched and searched I lost it !I was really so pumped up I couldn’t contain my excitement god an asteroid had just crossed over the face of the moon and I saw it, I really expected it to be mainstream news next day but nothing , not a whisper about it ,I have wrote to nasa etc various observatories only one was intrested and asked me details but then turned and said they couldn’t see anything of course my reaction was why it happened so why nothing on it , I then found out that a missile was getting shot out of orbit or was it that asteroid , the secrecy of it baffles me I have found it on allsky camera I wrote to them , they took the most important mins from the night movie and replaced them without the asteroid mins you can see it coming in from the bottom of orion and right over the face of the moon out the frame and back in then disappearing in amongst some stars luckily for me I downloaded the real night movie b4 I told them they weren’t even intrested ,I truly believe I have seen one of our asteroid that follow us about, but no one is interested in it , most just say I don’t believe you oh its a plane etc , I believe I have something to contribute to the science of asteroids , ive wrote to planet centre etc groups on facebook no one cares and it goes against my human nature seeing something like that, I should, keep my mouth shut and say nowt I will get it exposure, I just need to get more evidence surely someone somewhere has it on time lapse or something just they don’t know,please if you know anyone that may have a movie wether it be timelapse of the moon that night or pics with a strange thing in it at that time I know what it is , not knowing much myself ,my search is ongoing , god my grammar has even been blamed for people not believing me lol ,I juust an average skywatcher with an extraordinary sighting it happened I have no reason in this world to make something like this up I actually feel like its my responsibility to let ppl know what if it was the asteroid that crashed into Russia, what if its still here! following us in our orbit ,I swear that night had it came into our atmosphere I would have witnessed it coming in and causing some damage unsure of size but sizable enough for me to see those features , I can just barley see the iss in my scope which is now broken must get a new one, anyway anyone out there want to see pictures and drawings and even a clay model I did of it please join me at facebook , graham asteroidhunter Steadman and see what I saw that night! a one in a million sighting I even check ufo pages to see if theres anyone thought they seen anything strange that night I know what it was I seen it thru a scope on ten times mag , the moon was low and just giving of enough light to see it, weather was perfect seeing was great what a thing to have seen!! everytime I look at he moon , I hope I don’t see anything else, its hard enough trying to prove this without trying to prove another one, every feb I keep watching the moon and it really really just missed us , on seeing it on allsky cam we were extremely lucky anyone want to help get in touch graham
Actually Saturn’s 5th largest moon Tethys is much closer in size to being a twin to Ceres then Dione. Tethys is 1,060 Km. across, which is much closer to Ceres 960 Km. then Dione’s 1,122 Km.
However, the Dr. Schenk is correct in saying, “Ceres is most similar in size to several of Saturn’s icy moons,” Iapetus, and Rhea are in the same range, although larger yet then Dione. The same can be said of all 4 of Uranus’s largest moons, even though none are any closer then Dione, as well as several Kuiper objects. All 5 of Saturns mid sized moon’s, the 4 largest of Uranus, and several dwarf planet candidates are near the same size as Ceres.