Ceres planet

 Ceres ( dwarf planet) 

Largest asteroid and likely dwarf planet.

Ceres minor planet designation is the largest object in the main asteroid belt  that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. With a diameter of 940 km ( 580 mi ), Ceres is both largest of  the asteroids and the only dwarf planet inside its orbit.  It is the 25th largest body in the solar system within the orbit of Neptune. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered ( by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory on 1 January 1801 ). It was originally considered a planet but was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850 after many other object in similar orbits were discovered. Ceres is the only object in the 

asteroid belt rounded by its own gravity although Vesta and perhaps other asteroid were so in the past. Thus even at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under extremely dark skies. Ceres has been classified as a C type asteroid and, due to the presence of clay minerals, as a G type asteroid.

Ceres appears to be partially differentiated into a muddy ( ice rock) mantle/ core and a less dense but  stronger crust that is at most 30 precent ice. It probably no longer has an internal ocean of liquid water, but there  is brine that can flow through the outer mantle and reach the surface. The surface is mixture of water ice  and various hydrated minerals such as  carbonates and clay. The atmosphere however, is transient and of the minimal kind known as an exosphere. The robotic NASA spacecraft Dawn entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015. Johann Elert Bode, in 1772, first suggested that an undiscovered planet could exist between the orbit of Mars  and Jupiter. The pattern predicted that the missing planet ought to have an orbit with a radius near 2.8 astronomical unit ( AU ). 

Classification

The categorisation of  Ceres has changed more than once and has been the subject of some disagreement. Johann Elert Bode believed Ceres to be the " missing planet " he had proposed to exist between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance of 419 million km ( 2.8 ) AU from the Sun. Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol, and remined listed as a planet in astronomy book and tables ( along with 2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vista ) for half a century . 

As the other objects were discovered in the neighborhood of  Ceres, it was realised that Ceres represented the first of a new class of objects. 

Ceres ( bottom left ), the Moon and Earth, shown to scale.

The 2006 debate surrounding Pluto and what constitutes a planet led to Ceres being considered for reclassification as a planet. By this definition Ceres is not a planet because it does not dominate its orbits sharing it as it it does with the thousand of other asteroids in the asteroid belt and constituting only about 25% of the belts total mass. Bodies that made the first proposed definition but not the second such as Ceres were classified as dwarf planet. Ceres is the largest asteroid in the main belt. It has sometimes been assumed that Ceres was reclassified as a dwarf planet and that is therefore no longer considered as an asteroid. However NASA has at least once referred to Vista the largest asteroid. Ceres has had the dwarf planet classification since 2006. 

Orbit

Orbit of Ceres

Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter , within the asteroid belt and closer to the orbit of Mars , with a period of 4.6 Earth years.  The orbit is moderately inclined ( I = 10. 6 ° compared to 7 ° for Mercury and 17° for Pluto ) and moderately eccentric ( e = 0.08 compared to 0.09 for Mars ).

The diagram illustrating the orbits of Ceres ( blue ) and several planets ( white and grey ) . The segment of orbits below the ecliptic are plotted in darker colour and the orange + sign is the sun location. The top left diagram is a polar view that shows the location of Ceres in the gap between Mars and Jupiter. The top right is a closeup demonstrating the locations of the perihelion ( q ) and aphelion ( Q ) of Ceres and Mars. In this diagram ( but not in general) the perihelion of mass is on the opposite side of the sun from those of Ceres and several of the large main belt asteroid including two Pallas and 10 hygiea. The bottom diagram is a side view showing the inclination of the orbit of Ceres compared to the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. 

Ceres  was once thought to be a remember of an asteroid family.  

Notable geological features on Ceres

The rotation period of Ceres  ( the Ceresian day ) is 9 hours and 4 minutes. It has an axial of 4°. This is small enough of Ceres polar regions to contain permanently shadowed crater that are expected to act as clod traps and accumulate water ice over time , similar to the situation on the Moon and Mercury . About 0.14% of water molecules released from the surface are expected to end up in the traps , hopping an average of 3 time before escaping or being trapped.

Please comment 👍and share this blog to everyone . I have just fitted Google translate in my so you can translate in your language. There is three line on the left side it is present  there.  Thanks for reading this blog.

<script data-ad-client="pub-6251909957976558" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/

pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>