Fun Facts About Ceres The Largest Asteroid & A Dwarf Planet

Learn More Interesting Fun Facts About Ceres! 

• During the 18^th and early 19^th century, the search for the ‘missing planet’ between Mars and Jupiter continued. Ceres was the first object to be discovered and was initially thought to be a planet, but turned out to be the largest object in what would become known as the Asteroid Belt.
• For the first 50 years after its discovery Ceres was thought to be a planet, then a minor planet/asteroid, but in 2006 astronomers determined that Ceres was a dwarf planet like other minor planets of the outer solar system.
• Even though Ceres is the largest object of the main Asteroid Belt comprising a 1/3^rd of the total mass, it is only about 1/5th the mass of the next largest dwarf planet - Makemake!
• With a rotation of 9 hours, Ceres’ day is one of the shortest in the solar system.
• An axial rotation tilt of just 4 degrees means Ceres spins nearly perfectly upright and therefore doesn't experience seasons like Earth and some other bodies in the solar system.
• Ceres is the smallest object in the solar system to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (rounded by gravity) – it’s 580 km smaller than Saturn's moon Rhea, the next smallest such object!
• The internal structure of Ceres is thought to be closer to that of the layered inner terrestrial planets than its asteroid neighbours. A solid rocky core likely underlies a mantle of rock/water-ice and possibly some salty subsurface liquid water. In fact, some scientists believe Ceres might have more water than Earth does!
• Ceres’ dusty surface is covered in numerous small, relatively young craters, but a distinct lack of larger ones which hints that the icy surface (or cryovolcanoes) might have erased the larger older craters.
• One of the dominant features on Ceres is a mysterious 5 km (3 mile) high mountain known as Ahuna Mons, which appears to be a cryovolcano due to its steep relief and lack of craters!
• Another of Cere's unique surface features are several bright spots such as the ones located within the 80-kilometre wide Occator crater. The spots are likely the result of substances such as ice or salts reflecting sunlight!
• Ceres has also been found to have a tenuous atmosphere of water vapour which maybe created by cryovolcanoes, from ice exposed by recent impacts or the transforming of water-ice to vapour which migrates to the surface and is eventually lost to space.
• Ceres is believed to have formed during the accretion phase in the early Solar System about 4.5 billion years ago but remained as a ‘protoplanet’ which didn’t merge with an existing planet or go on to form its own.
• Following the Dawn spacecraft's mission at the asteroid 4 Vesta, the probe entered orbit around Ceres in March 2015 to study its surface, composition and history becoming the first spacecraft to orbit two objects in deep space!