Ceres

Official Name: Ceres

Distance from Sun: 2.8 AU

Mass: 8.958 x 10 20 kilograms

Myth: Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, and the love a mother bears for a child. She was the daughter of Saturn and Ops. She is also the sister of Jupiter and the mother of Proserpine. Ceres was a kind and benevolent goddess to the Romans. The Romans had a common conversational expression based from Ceres kindness, “fit for Ceres”. It was an expression used to mean splendid.

Interior properties: Ceres is very similar to the terrestrial planets of our solar system, but it is much less dense. Ceres has a rocky, layered interior, but they aren’t clearly defined. It can be anticipated that Ceres has a solid core and a mantle made out of water ice. The crust of the planet is rocky and dusty with large salt deposits. The salt deposits are not composed of sodium chloride (table salt). Instead they are made out of different minerals like magnesium sulfate.

Geology: Ceres is composed of mainly ice and rock. It has a rocky interior with an icy exterior. It is covered in numerous small craters. The surface of the dwarf planet is a mixture of ice, various minerals, and iron rich clay.

Atmosphere: Ceres has a very thin atmosphere. Traces of water vapor have been found in the atmosphere. There is speculation that the vapors are produced from ice volcanoes or the ice on the surface is transforming into a gas.

Mission Summary: In 2007, NASA launched the space probe Dawn on a mission to visit the two dwarf planets Vesta and Ceres to study more about their composition. Dawn arrived at Ceres in March of 2015. By 2016, Dawn obtained all of the required data set by the mission’s original objectives. Dawn obtained the global shape, average density, surface morphology, mineralogy, elemental composition, regional activity, and topography of Ceres.