![]() One of the similarities is a layered interior, but Ceres' layers aren’t as clearly defined. StructureĬeres is more similar to the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) than its asteroid neighbors, but it is much less dense. About 4 billion years ago, Ceres settled into its current location among the leftover pieces of planetary formation in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Nearby Jupiter's strong gravity prevented it from becoming a fully formed planet. Scientists describe Ceres as an "embryonic planet," which means it started to form but didn't quite finish. MoonsĬeres formed along with the rest of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become a small dwarf planet. ![]() That means it spins nearly perfectly upright and doesn't experience seasons like other more tilted planets do. ![]() As Ceres orbits the Sun, it completes one rotation every 9 hours, making its day length one of the shortest in the solar system.Ĭeres' axis of rotation is tilted just 4 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the Sun. Credit: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development (VTAD)Ĭeres takes 1,682 Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the Sun. From this distance, it takes sunlight 22 minutes to travel from the Sun to Ceres.Ī 3D model of Ceres, a dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the Sun to Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Ceres would be about as big as a poppy seed.įrom an average distance of 257 million miles (413 million kilometers), Ceres is 2.8 astronomical units away from the Sun. With a radius of 296 miles (476 kilometers), Ceres is 1/13 the radius of Earth. If Ceres does not have living things today, there may be signs it harbored life in the past. If anything does live on Ceres, it's likely to be very small microbes similar to bacteria. Here on Earth, water is essential for life, so it's possible that with this ingredient and a few other conditions met, life possibly could exist there. Ceres has something a lot of other planets don't: water. Potential for LifeĬeres is one of the few places in our solar system where scientists would like to search for possible signs of life. The word cereal comes from the same name. NamesakeĬeres is named for the Roman goddess of corn and harvests. Even though Ceres comprises 25% of the asteroid belt's total mass, Pluto is still 14 times more massive. When NASA's Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft.Ĭalled an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. The spacecraft also will provide the first-ever images of the Sun’s poles and the never-before-observed magnetic environment there, which helps drive the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle and its periodic outpouring of solar storms.Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it's the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. Solar Orbiter will observe the Sun with high spatial resolution telescopes and capture observations in the environment directly surrounding the spacecraft to create a one-of-a-kind picture of how the Sun can affect the space environment throughout our solar system. NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will present Solar Orbiter, the ESA/NASA mission to the Sun, during a science press briefing on Friday, Feb.
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