Ceres' mysterious bright spots preliminarily resolved: NASA

U.S. space agency NASA said Monday the mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are preliminarily resolved in a new sequence of images taken by its Dawn spacecraft early this month.

After analyzing these images, taken by Dawn on May 3 and 4, NASA determined that the brightest spots within a crater in the northern hemisphere are actually composed of many smaller spots, although their exact nature remains unknown.

"Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice," Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a NASA statement.

These images, taken from a distance of 13,600 kilometers, offer scientists new insights into crater shapes and sizes, and a host of other intriguing geological features on the surface, the U.S. space agency said.

Ceres was discovered in 1801 by astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, who named the object for the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships.

Originally described as a planet, Ceres was later categorized as an asteroid, and then reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

The mysterious world has an average diameter of 590 miles (950 kilometers), and is thought to contain a large amount of ice.

Launched in 2007, Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet and the first to orbit two distinct solar system targets. It studied giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6.

The spacecraft has now concluded its first mapping orbit and is now heading downwards to get to an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) -- three times closer than the previous orbit. It's expected to enter the second mapping orbit on June 6 to comprehensively study the surface of Ceres. Endite