Strange white spot on Ceres ,what is it ,any thoughts

[Mokidugway]

Alien tech ,volcano, gas plume or imaging problems ,what is it !!!!!.

[dain_bramaged]

Probably the simplest explanation. Water may sublimed to the surface, gathered in a crater and frozen. A very interesting feature nonetheless.

[frogesque]

Probably the simplest explanation. Water may sublimed to the surface, gathered in a crater and frozen. A very interesting feature nonetheless.

Probably, but a bit boring.

 

How about, the eyeball has awoken and is watching us watching them?

[lassie23]

Snow

[Dr. Astro]

Snow

 

A colony of Penguins with frozen wings, hence the reflection.

[Guest]

I reckon it's a 'watercano' - that is water forced up from the interior by pressure from various gravitational influences and as it reaches the surface it immediately freezes and what you see is the reflection of the sun's light on this - well until we can get a probe landed on it this is probably as good as any other explanation. 

[frogesque]

I reckon it's a 'watercano' - that is water forced up from the interior by pressure from various gravitational influences and as it reaches the surface it immediately freezes and what you see is the reflection of the sun's light on this - well until we can get a probe landed on it this is probably as good as any other explanation. 

I can't see the mechanisim for this, Ceres is a small world on its own, there are no large bodies in the vicinity to cause gravitational distortion and heating and I doubt it very much if there is much if any residual heat within its core. A geologically recent smack with an asteroid or comet could have caused a disturbance to the surface but we will just have to be patient. Hopefully we will get much better pictures later on that will show up the finer detail. It does go to to show though that dead space is anything but dead and always has the ability to fascinate and surprise us.

Edited January 27, 2015 by frogesque

[Eagle Eye]

On 25/01/2015 at 22:41, lassie23 said:

Snow

Even they get it but not us.