At first glance, the dwarf planet Ceres hardly inspires dreams of alien life. Orbiting between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt, it is a frigid, gray world, battered and cracked. Its surface ...

When NASA’s Dawn spacecraft finally reached the giant asteroids Vesta and Ceres, scientists expected simple rocky worlds. Instead, the mission revealed mysterious bright spots, signs of icy eruptions, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognizes five dwarf planets in our solar system, though there are likely ...

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Mosaic showing 130 bright spots on Ceres. Top left: A haze appears above Occator Crater when the sun hits it, suggesting the crater contains subsurface water ice. Top right: A kind of haze also ...

Join host Beth Johnson and guest Dr. Sam Courville, lead author of a new study on Ceres, as they dive into the possibility that the dwarf planet may have had the energy needed to support habitability ...

Six years ago, NASA's Dawn mission communicated with Earth for the last time, ending its exploration of Ceres and Vesta, the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt. Since then, Ceres —a water-rich ...