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The geology of Ceres is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the dwarf planet Ceres. It seeks to understand and describe Ceres' composition, landforms, evolution, and physical properties and processes. The study draws on fields such as geophysics, remote sensing, geochemistry, geodesy, and cartography (see Planetary geology).
Ceres (minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the middle main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first known asteroid, discovered on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily, and announced as a new planet.
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept ...
Scientists have detected ice on the planet's surface, which could mean Ceres is hiding an ocean below its frozen crust. Dwarf planet Ceres may have a huge ocean that could support life Skip to ...
e. The geology of solar terrestrial planets mainly deals with the geological aspects of the four terrestrial planets of the Solar System – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – and one terrestrial dwarf planet: Ceres. Earth is the only terrestrial planet known to have an active hydrosphere. Terrestrial planets are substantially different from ...
Ceres is saturated with impact craters.Many have a central pit or bright spot. In the first batch of 17 names approved by the IAU, craters north of 20° north latitude had names beginning with A–G (with Asari being the furthest north), those between 20° north and south latitude beginning with H–R, and those further south beginning with S–Z (with Zadeni being the furthest south).
Bright spots on Ceres. Several bright surface features (also known as faculae) were discovered on the dwarf planet Ceres by the Dawn spacecraft in 2015. The brightest cluster of spots ("Spot 5") is located in an 80-kilometer (50 mi) crater called Occator. [1][2] The largest and brightest component of the cluster is in the center of the crater ...
Dawn is a retired space probe that was launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. [ 1 ] In the fulfillment of that mission—the ninth in NASA's Discovery Program — Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011, and completed a 14-month survey ...