"Strange" lights on Ceres

[steph]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/02/26/ceres_shiny_spot_is_actually_twins.html

Well, of course all the others the news sites jumped on it and only mention the natural sources later in the article.

Now... who comes up with the aliens guy?

Edit: to be honest, they do look very cool (and will only get cooler as Dawn starts orbiting it). Would be epic if they suddenly zapped the probe into nothingness :lol:

 

[Anroalh12]

Aliens......

 

[fsci123]

I'm going for ice volcanoes. If you look closely you can see a sort of whispyness to it...as if the particles were being carried away by wind.

 

[Andy44]

The comment section on the news article I read about this were full of people who claimed NASA had already cooked up the conspiracy to hide the truth about this from us...SMDH.

 

[Kyle]

The comment section on the news article I read about this were full of people who claimed NASA had already cooked up the conspiracy to hide the truth about this from us...SMDH.

Ah, comment sections. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

 

[Pioneer]

 

[RisingFury]

Would be epic if they suddenly zapped the probe into nothingness :lol:

You and I have two very different definitions of the word "cool".

 

[statickid]

I'm going for ice volcanoes. If you look closely you can see a sort of whispyness to it...as if the particles were being carried away by wind.

wind :blink:

 

[TachyonDriver]

wind :blink:

solar?

 

[fsci123]

wind :blink:

Triton has wind... Vesta had water.

 

[Andy44]

Would be epic if they suddenly zapped the probe into nothingness :lol:

"All these worlds are yours, except Ceres. Attempt no landings there."

 

[jroly]

 

[boogabooga]

Oh, good. It looks like we are actually about to learn something.

This is exciting. The solar system keeps getting more interesting.

 

[Unstung]

They're two highly reflective monoliths that the extraterrestrials placed on Ceres for humanity to discover. The aliens reasonably thought that humanity would easily find the monoliths by placing them on the smallest, relatively nearby body that has reached hydrostatic equilibrium. The monoliths are a more notable feature on a smaller body like Ceres. Ceres is also a notable object for humanity to explore because it has enough mass to become spherical.

 

[Urwumpe]

its fragments of upper stages that we used for interplanetary missions and which crashed on Ceres with a one to a trillion chance.

 

[Loru]

Come on. Everyone should know, those are weather baloons.

 

[garyw]

I'm going for ice volcano's as well. I don't know much about the optics used on the spacraft but I wonder if they could be over exposing the lighter areas of the ice and so making it appear much brighter than it actually is.

 

[fsci123]

I'm going for ice volcano's as well. I don't know much about the optics used on the spacraft but I wonder if they could be over exposing the lighter areas of the ice and so making it appear much brighter than it actually is.

Certainly if those spots are ice volcanoes they we surely caused by impacts of some kind. There are no other bodies around Ceres to cause the surface to spontaneously rupture like that.

Really can't wait until dawn gets into orbit.

 

[garyw]

Certainly if those spots are ice volcanoes they we surely caused by impacts of some kind.

Those bright spots are quite nicely inside the crater so if there is water under the surface, the bottom of crater may well be a good place to find it.

So, another question - how deep are those craters?

 

[statickid]

its fragments of upper stages that we used for interplanetary missions and which crashed on Ceres with a one to a trillion chance.

Mars 1 perhaps?