/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7730114

I know /sci/ was curious about those bright splotches on Ceres. Well, it's finally settled: it's Epsom Salt.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4785

>Ceres has more than 130 bright areas, and most of them are associated with impact craters. Study authors, led by Andreas Nathues at Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany, write that the bright material is consistent with a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrite. A different type of magnesium sulfate is familiar on Earth as Epsom salt.

>Nathues and colleagues, using images from Dawn's framing camera, suggest that these salt-rich areas were left behind when water-ice sublimated in the past. Impacts from asteroids would have unearthed the mixture of ice and salt, they say.

>"The global nature of Ceres' bright spots suggests that this world has a subsurface layer that contains briny water-ice," Nathues said.

>>7362917
Oh, that's good to know, because in other gifs and images I've seen, it looks more like the bright regions maintain their brilliant luminous quality even as they move with the planets rotation. Something that would be impossible for a reflection.

How much time and money would it take to build an amateur spaceship that could make it to Ceres? Me and a few of my buds really want to see what is going on over there and we are tired of waiting for NASA to tell us. I am willing to take a few of you guys with me as long as you can help us build and launch the ship.

If the spots are like 10km across, can it be like a giant hole/cavern opening showing ice below the crust? Pic related, last shot. If the spots were luminous in themselves, wouldn't the crater show signs of light other than the sun? Leads me to believe whatever is there is acting as a giant mirror.

Maybe the cavern is full of crystal formations?

Or maybe it is a fucking city. Ayy lmao. No way to tell at this point.