

Mystery of Ceres' bright spots grows - swamp40
http://www.nature.com/news/mystery-of-ceres-bright-spots-grows-1.17313

======
smoyer
Amazing science ... I can't wait to hear more (assuming more can be gleaned by
this spacecraft).

The article also gave me a chuckle - "after an errant cosmic ray". If that
cosmic ray had behaved itself and gone where it was told we wouldn't have had
any problems!

~~~
theophrastus
"errant" just means "wandering", from the Latin form _iterare_. It's where we
get, for example, "a Knight errant" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight-
errant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight-errant)), sometimes spelled
"arrant". To be mistaken as 'in error' was a latter meaning which became
fused.

------
tericho
I just learned about Dyson Trees[1] recently. Could this be related? (Layman
asking serious question)

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Dyson_tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Dyson_tree)

~~~
madaxe_again
Pretty unlikely. Not entirely impossible, but Ceres would be an odd place for
ETs to set up shop and then stay hush for a few eons.

More likely it's water or sulphur. I think we may be in for a big "Ceres is
volcanically (could by cryovolcanism) active" shock, given the lack of
cratering they've also observed.

It's a decent size, its composition is only hypothetically known, it may have
more latent heat than we expect. If so, it's extremely exciting news, as it
means it's not quite the inhospitable cold, dry, rock we expected.

~~~
fit2rule
Honestly, I seriously hope its aliens. We zoom in once we get closer and
discover structures that can only be described as a UFO base. While we're all
astonished, we see one take off, it lands on the White House lawn and offers
us all a free ride to the nearest star.

I'd go.

~~~
madaxe_again
The most likely "aliens!" thing we have at the moment is FRBs.

Perhaps there'll be a little sign there saying "all these asteroids are yours,
except Ceres."

