The most obvious explanation is that it is some sort of precipitate, some solid left behind after the fluid suspending it dissipated. Salts would be an example.
Another possibility is that it is from an impactor that came in several pieces, but that’s even less likely, given that these spots appear in several locations at various latitudes on Ceres.
“The new shots were taken from about 2,700 miles away on June 6, during the probe’s second mapping orbit. Dawn will make a few more passes at this distance (each orbit takes about three Earth days), then advance (or descend, depending on your frame of reference) to 900 miles from Ceres sometime in August. The improved resolution of photos, temperature and geographic data will hopefully give scientists the boost they need to solve the mystery of the white spots and make further theories about this ancient object residing in our solar system.”
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Ceres: Dwarf Planet’s White Spots Shine in New Pic”
Before today I would have said it was obviously ice of some sort, but now I’m not so sure. Aside from Chris Russell’s point about ice rapidly sublimating if laid bare like that (assuming we’re talking about water ice, anyway) there’s just something weird to me about how gosh-darn reflective it is, even at high incidence. The spots look like the light source should be coming from behind the camera or something, but its clearly coming in from the bottom left.
Anyone know if Ceres is abnormally dark? (as in low-albedo?) Maybe the exposure on the camera is set really low to better see the surface and is just getting blown out by the reflection even at high incidence.
Or maybe its Aliens. Its hard to argue with that hair.
As best I can tell, Ceres is not freakishly dark. According to Wikipedia, Ceres’ albedo is 0.090±0.0033 (V-band geometric), brighter than fresh asphalt, and about the same as a dark conifer forest in Summer.
Simple. Ceres was hit by a solid diamond asteroid. These are the pieces.
It has been speculated that a carbon rich gas giant could form diamonds at the core. If there was one in a system with more than one star, it is possible for it to be disrupted and ejected from the system. So…
