Artist’s concept of Ceres bright spots, based on a detailed map of the surface compiled from images taken from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. The very bright patches of material are in Ceres’ crater Occator; altogether, astronomers have seen some 130 bright spots on Ceres.
Astronomers have seen unexpected changes in the dwarf planet Ceres' famous bright spots. The most prominent of the Ceres bright spots lie inside the crater Occator, but there are many bright spots on this little world. One group of astronomers said in December they are likely salt deposits. The spots appeared eye-catchingly strange to the cameras of the Dawn spacecraft when it began orbiting Ceres in March, 2015. Now astronomers on Earth have found ingenious ways to study the bright spots, too, and new work suggests that the spots brighten during the day and also show other variations. These observations suggest that the material of the spots is volatile and evaporates in the warm glow of sunlight.
The work suggests that Ceres may be a much more active world than most of its asteroid neighbors. The new study's lead author, astronomer Paolo Molaro, said:
As soon as the Dawn spacecraft revealed the mysterious bright spots on the surface of Ceres, I immediately thought of the possible measurable effects from Earth. As Ceres rotates the spots approach the Earth and then recede again, which affects the spectrum of the reflected sunlight arriving at Earth.
Comment: Is it possible that Ceres' bright spots might be electric in nature?
For more information on the electric universe theory, read Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.