A Planet That Never Was

Dawn view of Ceres

The Dawn spacecraft provided this view of Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt. Occator Crater, at the center of the disk, contains bright mounds of salts, which may have been deposited when briny water from below the surface pushed upward through cracks in the crust. Ceres is putting in its best showing of the year in late May, although you still need binoculars or a telescope to pick it out. [NASA/JPL/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA]

Find out more in our radio program entitled Ceres at Opposition.

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