
Ceres RC3 Animation: Bright spots revealed to be composed of many smaller spots - anigbrowl
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19547
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david-given
Now, I'm not saying it's aliens, but...

Sadly, it's probably just a really interesting icy outcrop of some
description. Current theories of Ceres' composition suggest an enormously
thick icy layer covered in dust and rock, so a meteor strike could expose the
ice (and probably cause all kinds of weird physics --- ice goes _strange_
under extreme temperatures and pressures).

But let's say it is aliens, and in a week or so we get pictures of what is
indubitably an alien city.

Thought experiment: what happens next?

~~~
honestcoyote
It's a fun thought experiment. I've had a similar one, imagining an alternate
cold war with the divergent point being the mid 60's Mariner probe visit to
Mars revealed canals, cities, vegetation, and a shallow ocean.

A city on Ceres would make NASA's budgetary woes go away instantly. Either
there would be a new space race, or the various spacefaring nations would
quickly make an arrangement for a multinational crew to visit, with each
nation (or group like the EU) reserving the right to make claims later. I'm
not sure how the public would react. I think they'd be glued to the news, but
there wouldn't be any sort of panic, since both science and science fiction
has led many people to expect finding this sort of thing one day.

~~~
david-given
Of course, it's worth considering that if there _was_ an inhabited alien city
on Ceres, the chances of them not knowing we were here would be nil.

So, alternative (a): they know we're here and for some reason don't want us to
know about them.

Alternative (b): they know we're here but either don't care / are too alien to
want to communicate.

Alternative (c): the city is uninhabited.

I would say that the most immediate reaction on earth would be shouting,
initially at each other, but very quickly people would be shouting at Ceres
--- everyone who can do some basic electronics and get hold of a satellite
dish will be making transmissions. For alternatives (b) and (c) above, we
wouldn't get a reply. For (a), well...

~~~
grecy
> _Of course, it 's worth considering that if there was an inhabited alien
> city on Ceres, the chances of them not knowing we were here would be nil._

What makes you say that? If they are there, then _we_ don't know about _them_
(yet).

Also, imagine they're at the same level of technology we were 100 years ago
(or 1,000, 10,000 or even 100,000)

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think GP is assuming that Ceres is not their homeworld, but the city is just
a colony. This would imply a level of technology ahead of ours.

~~~
jonah
Why would they go to Ceres and not Earth? From our perspective at least it's
much more attractive.

~~~
david-given
If you're a space-travelling human-like species, Ceres is pretty hospitable.
Lots of water, lots of rock, enough gravity to keep things down while still
being easy to get off of, a manageable temperature, and it's in the asteroid
belt so there's plenty of nearby materiel for development (not to mention
Jupiter not far away, energetically).

Earth's too hot, too far away from anywhere, and at the bottom of a great big
hole. The only reason we like it is because we've adapted to its environment.
It's not very good real estate. Plus, it's contaminated with life, which means
lots of big, complex, wriggly molecules that get everywhere and fiddle with
things. Get those in your life system and the alien equivalent of anaphylactic
shock is probably getting off lightly.

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ChuckMcM
This just keeps getting better and better. Can't wait to find out what they
end up with. I'm still betting on exposed water ice but would totally love it
if this was the bright shiny core of a nickel/iron meteorite.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I dunno. I've seen NiFe meteorite material, and it's anything but shiny.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This one is pretty shiny,
[http://scienceviews.com/photo/library/SIA2743.html](http://scienceviews.com/photo/library/SIA2743.html)

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nealabq
On the far right side of the picture, near the vertical middle, there's a
crater with straight sides, like a ... hexagon. And there's a similar sized
pentagon near the top.

Looks like Ceres is a Goldberg polyhedron.

Oh, and the bright spots are thermal exhaust ports.

~~~
mirimir
Many of the craters do seem polygonal.

But see
[http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-27548-7_5](http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-27548-7_5)

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tgbrter
Scattered remains of a huge alien spaceship?

( Sadly it is probably just ice. )

~~~
gregor7777
Yeah a huge alien ice spaceship.

~~~
tgbrter
Actually, a large part of a spaceship capable of traveling near c would be
comprised of ice, as a shield from relativistic particles.

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/craft.html](https://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/craft.html)

~~~
pavel_lishin
It slices! It dices! It's a shield! It's reaction mass! It's fuel! It's
potable water!

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swamp40
It looks like the Apple logo and the Android logo have been fighting, and the
Apple has bitten off one of Android's arms and part of its head.

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andrewstuart2
The bright spots are cool and all, but what's the deal with the lines across
the surface? They remind me a bit of the lines you see from rocks moving
across dry lakebeds. ([http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-
rocks.sh...](http://geology.com/articles/racetrack-playa-sliding-rocks.shtml))

~~~
Florin_Andrei
If the lines end up converging towards a crater, then they are caused by
ejecta from a meteorite impact.

The Moon is full of such lines - I've taken this picture a while ago, and the
ejecta lines are clearly visible after some post-processing:

[http://i.imgur.com/o81hb.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/o81hb.jpg)

~~~
nekopa
Great pic. Would you mind telling me the setup you used o take it? I currently
have a DSLR with only a 300mm lense and have yet to get a photo of the moon
that nice...

~~~
Florin_Andrei
Home-made newtonian telescope. 150mm aperture, 1200mm focal length (f/8).
Panasonic G1 camera (DSLR-like but without mirrors). Camera lens removed,
camera body mounted on telescope focuser, so the sensor was in the focal plane
of the telescope primary mirror. A.k.a. "prime focus" photography.

Basically, the scope became the "camera lens".

Some post processing in Lightroom, mostly just cranking up contrast and
saturation. Some denoising.

No idea what the exposure was, I just gauged it on the camera LCD so that I
wouldn't get the over-exposure warning on the Moon surface.

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xhrpost
First I've heard of this, are these spots within the visible spectrum?

~~~
robflynn
I believe so. They have (if I recall) viewed them with both visible and
infrared spectrums.

(found some photos)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28dwarf_planet%29#/medi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28dwarf_planet%29#/media/File:PIA19316-Ceres-
DwarfPlanet-DawnMission-VIR-20150413.jpg)

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NobleLie
Electric Universe Theory has non-mainstream coherent and sensible explanations
for these type of phenomena. Any HN users well versed in it's explanations?
Been reading up on it lately and I'd like to discuss.

~~~
david-given
Here's a laundry list of problems with EU:

[http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.ch/p/chall...](http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.ch/p/challenges-
for-electric-universe.html)

(At a cursory glance it looks valid, despite the domain name.)

~~~
NobleLie
Thanks for the link. Checking it out now.

Anyway, after around 5 to 10 hours of investigative reading on EU, it seems
quite worthy to think about/ follow up on.

At the minimum it's become quite apparent that the Astronomical Standard Model
has plenty of spots which are expressed as truth, when there are real problems
with observation. I'm not even claiming EU is going to better, but staunch
supporters do highlight some interesting inconsistencies and seemingly
misguided judgements of modern astronomers. That's not to say their own pet
theories are bound to be better though.

