Bright surfaces on the dwarf planet Ceres discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft |

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Shiny surface elements on the dwarf planet Ceres, known as the faculae, were discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in 2015. (NASA Image)

(NASA) – The shiny surface elements of the dwarf planet Ceres, known as the faculae, were discovered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft in 2015.

This mosaic of such a feature, Cerealia Facula, combines images obtained at altitudes up to 35 km above the surface of Ceres.

The mosaic is superimposed on a topography model based on images obtained during the low altitude mapping of Dawn (240 miles or 385 km altitude). No vertical exaggeration has been applied. The center of Cerealia Facula is located at 19.7 degrees north latitude and 239.6 degrees south longitude.

During his mission of more than a decade, the spacecraft Dawn studied the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres, celestial bodies believed to form early in the history of the solar system.

The objective of the mission is to characterize the first solar system and the processes that dominated its formation.

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