Physical Size
A scroll-driven journey through the scale of the universe, from subatomic structures to the largest known cosmic systems.
Ceres
Makemake
Dwarf planet
Ceres
A dwarf planet with bright salt deposits left by water from below.
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt and the smallest recognized dwarf planet. NASA’s Dawn mission showed that its brightest spots are salt deposits left by briny water rising from below, showing that Ceres is a water-rich world with a geologically recent past.
- mean diameter
- 940 km
- Mass
- ~0.00016 Earth masses
- Age
- ~4.56 billion years
- Composition
- Rock and water ice
- Orbits
- Sun
- Temperature
- ~167 K mean surface
- Imaged by
- Dawn · 2015
Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MPS / DLR / IDA / Daniel Macháček · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons