White Spots, Lone Mountains, and Other Funny Business on Ceres

Ceres is a wonderland of puzzles, including the white spots (far right) and enigmatic ridges, crater chains, and flows. (Credit: NASA/JPL/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA; processing Elisabetta Bonora & Marco Faccin) "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka' but 'That’s funny...'" That quote, delivered by the brilliant science writer Isaac Asimov, keeps popping into my head as I look at the remarkable new images of Ceres. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting the dwarf planet since March 6, scrutinizing a landscape that is not quite like anything humans have ever seen before. One detail on Ceres jumped out almost immediately: a bizarre white spot, drastically brighter than its drab surroundings. As Dawn got closer, the probe's camera showed that the white spot is actually a patch of at least eight smaller white areas; there are also smaller white spots and extended light-ish splotches scattered ...