Truly its own world, Ceres has the ability to support life, however, it also sports some other interesting, earth-like features. The surface of the planet remains geologically active, mainly through means of volcanic activity.

After its escape from Vesta and its journey onward, Dawn entered orbit around Ceres in March 2015. Dawn discovered that the inner solar system’s only dwarf planet was an ocean world where water and ammonia reacted with silicate rocks.

Ceres probably has a solid core and a mantle made of water ice. In fact, Ceres could be composed of as much as 25 percent water. If that is correct, Ceres has more water than Earth does. Ceres’ crust is rocky and dusty with large salt deposits.

This is in line with planetary protection protocols, guaranteeing Dawn won’t crash into Ceres for the next few decades. “Dawn’s legacy is that it explored two of the last uncharted worlds in the inner Solar System,” says Marc Rayman (NASA-JPL) in a recent press release.

Ceres was the first asteroid discovered, on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily. Ceres’s small size means that even at its brightest it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies.

1,682 days
Ceres/Orbital period

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it’s the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system.

Dawn entered Ceres orbit on March 6, 2015, four months prior to the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto. Dawn thus became the first mission to study a dwarf planet at close range….Ceres orbit.

Given its current magnitude, 1 Ceres is visible with the help of a binocular with a 30-40mm aperture, easy with a small telescope.

Though Ceres is the largest asteroid belt object, its gravity is still only less than 3 percent of Earth’s gravity. Yet, Ceres is “one of the few asteroids you could probably walk around on,” Lewicki said. While living on Ceres, you’d be subject to extreme shifts in temperature.

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and it’s the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801.

Dwarf Planet 1 Ceres is currently in the constellation of Taurus.

Craters and mysterious bright spots are beginning to pop out in the latest images of Ceres from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. These images, taken Feb. 12 at a distance of 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) from the dwarf planet, pose intriguing questions for the science team to explore as the spacecraft nears its destination.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured pictures of dwarf planet Ceres in visible and infrared wavelengths and those images were combined to create this false-color view of Occator Crater. Brine – or salty liquids – in the center of the crater was pushed up from a deep reservoir below Ceres’ crust. In this view, the brine appears reddish.

The latest images, which have a resolution of 4.9 miles (7.8 kilometers) per pixel, represent the sharpest views of Ceres to date. The spacecraft explored the giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months during 2011 and 2012.

The image was obtained at a distance of about 30,000 miles (about 48,000 kilometers) at a sun-Ceres-spacecraft angle, or phase angle, of 123 degrees. Image scale on Ceres is 1.9 miles (2.9 kilometers) per pixel. Ceres has an average diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers).