It turned out that the mysterious white substance that the Dawn spacecraft photographed on a hook: salt
Since the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around the large asteroid/dwarf planet Ceres, it has been continuously transmitting photographs of its surface. It turns out that, like other bodies, it is dotted with craters of various sizes from hundreds of kilometers to a few kilometers. It is likely that in the future spacecraft with cameras with higher resolutions will be able to find much smaller craters. In any case, preliminary maps of the surface have already been prepared. At first glance you can see that it has very few grooves that are found in bodies of the same order of magnitude as Saturn's moons. Does Ceres lack extensive and massive tectonic activity that can create grooves on a global scale? It may be so.
At the moment it is too early to summarize the findings of the spacecraft since they are few. However, a striking phenomenon that arouses great curiosity was found, which is two very bright blocks in one of the craters that received the name Occator. The diameter of the crater is 90 km, its depth is half a km and the length of the central bulge is 10 km. Very close to these large spots are several small spots that are also bright. One of the spots covers the bulge in the center of the crater. The researchers estimate that the age of this crater is 78 million years. A thin haze covering the bottom of the crater can be seen in several photographs taken by the researchers. This may have something to do with the presence of water vapor on Keres that was observed by the Herschel Space Telescope in 2014.. The haze was observed during the noon hours of Keres and one should not forget that its day length is 9 hours.. It has been hypothesized that this phenomenon is similar to the surface activity of comets where water vapor Picks up small particles of dust and residual ice.
The observations show that the bright spots contain magnesium sulphates, a type of salt mineral. A more in-depth study of these bright areas will be possible as the spacecraft nears the end of its mission. It will be possible to do this when the spacecraft in the last hours of its flight will leave its orbit and prepare for a collision with the asteroid. The impact will be inside this crater and until it crashes it will transmit photographs of the ground and make various measurements, it will be interesting to see photographs of the ground from zero distance.
Comments
Herzl
The term "salt" to denote cooking salt, is just one of many examples of the group of chemical substances called salts.
Salt is a compound consisting of cations (ions with a positive electric charge), which usually appear as a metallic element, and anions (ions with a negative electric charge), which usually appear as a non-metallic element, so that the overall charge of the compound is neutral. Therefore, in every salt the ratio of anions to cations is constant, according to their charge. Salt is sometimes referred to as an ionic substance because of its composition.
What is it similar to? ….
For example, the term "Herzl"
After all, it is known that when a person from the settlement says "Herzl" he usually means Benjamin Zeev (Theodore) Herzl, the founder of the Jewish state and the founder of the Zionist movement. Despite this, it is still not to be concluded from this that whenever someone who knows you, whenever he calls you by your name, Herzl, he must also call you by your last name in order to make it clear that his call is directed at you and not at Benjamin Ze'ev (Theodore) Herzl.
And the evidence for this is the fact that you, from your personal computer, on the Hidan website, identify yourself as "Herzl" and without specifying an additional identifying name. This can be misleading and confusing. People may think that you are Benjamin Zeev (Theodore) Herzl. And maybe it's really you?
When you write "salt" without a nut, it is cooking salt. For any other salt, its ingredients must be written. The subtitle is misleading, and the correction comes only in the last paragraph. But in any case it is interesting that they found the composition of the white spots. And I'm also guessing that the "observations" were spectroscopic - it should have been specified, it's just one more word.