Map of Ceres’ surface shows surprises
Clusters of craters, smooth plains raise questions about dwarf planet’s past
HONOLULU — Clumps of craters on Ceres hint at a surprising past for the dwarf planet. Whether that past involves hidden ice deposits, a devastating whack by another space rock or something else entirely is uncertain.
“There is clearly something funky going on,” Simone Marchi of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., reported August 3 at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union.
Some regions of Ceres have more craters than others. Maps created by the Dawn spacecraft, in orbit around Ceres since March (SN: 4/4/15, p. 9), show that areas with the fewest craters overlap regions surrounding the three largest craters, two of which are nearly 300 kilometers across.