This New Video Of A Dwarf Planet Will Make You Feel Like A Fucking Astronaut

NASA has released a new video of the dwarf planet Ceres and it will make you feel like you're about to put a damn flag on the place.

By
Alex Kasprak
by Alex Kasprak

BuzzFeed Staff

Just look at this hunk of space rock:

View this video on YouTube
youtube.com / Via youtube.com

This baller rock is named Ceres, and it is the largest object in the asteroid belt and is the closest dwarf planet to Earth. Ceres is a mysterious world with full of unexplained bright spots and probably a massive store of underground ice.

This view, from 2,700 miles above, makes you feel it's time to start getting that spacesuit on:

NASA/JPL / Via youtube.com

The movie is made up of images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The video shows Ceres in false color to highlight differences in the surface material and reveals a surface riddled with impact craters.

Coming in for a landing, so to speak, the video also captures the dramatic surface around Ceres' Occator Crater — a mysterious bright spot on its surface:

NASA/JPL / Via youtube.com

These bright spots have been the source of much speculation, as NASA scientists have been unable to come up with an solid explanation for them since they were first discovered.

Speaking of those spots... A new study suggests that they are probably just made up of salt. So much for the secret alien entranceway theory.

NASA/JPL / Via jpl.nasa.gov

But they are still pretty cool. It turns out that when the Sun shines on some of those bright spots, a misty haze develops.

ESA/ATG medialab / Via dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

The scientists think that this comes from underground ice — exposed by impact craters — forming water vapor due to the Sun's warmth. When it does this, the vapor may rise and carry other tiny particles up with it.

This is super neat because though we already knew there was probably a lot of ice under there, we hadn't had a direct view of it on the surface... until now!

Dawn FTW! The ~science~ win!

NASA/JPL/Alex Kasprak/BuzzFeed / Via dawn.jpl.nasa.gov
Skip to footer