When NASA's Dawn probe sent back the first pictures of Ceres, with its mysterious lights, it was big news. Then along came Pluto. Of course the New Horizons mission and its historic fly by of Pluto was all over the headlines. But in the background, in the smaller news items and scholarly journals, there was much ado about Ceres. It's just that no one really noticed.
The two spots that caused so much debate when first noticed? As it turns out there are actually dozens of spots and some are hot and some are cold. With the Dawn probe closer to the surface in a perpetual orbit around the dwarf planet, there were observations of ice showers, plumes of smoke and a regular pattern of haze that appears at the same time interval every day. Check out the video below and learn more of what we now know about Ceres that you may have missed while fawning all over Pluto.