Apologies if this has already been discussed, couldn’t find any prior mention of this phenomenon. As you may be aware, the NASA spacecraft Dawn has performed a flyby of the dwarf planet Ceres and spotted some unusual lights.
Now I know what I hope the cause is but that’s probably unlikely. What are the likeliest explanations for these so far unexplained lights? Have we found anything similar elsewhere in the solar system (other than on Earth, of course)?
No flyby yet, the probe is still traveling towards Ceres and won’t reach it till tomorrow.
Are they lights though?, couldn’t it be white surfaces reflecting light?, It’s true that in some images they seem to be shining in zones of Ceres that are in the shadows, but may be they are mountains or something that it’s higher than the surrounding area and thus still receiving light?, or some other explanation?.
There’s an interesting article here on what they might be. Briefly:
A salt flat.
Shiny metals.
Exposed ice.
Water vapor.
Ice volcanoes.
Aliens’ solar concentrators.
Genetically engineered colonists from another civilization.
It’s a spacecraft.
Oh please be one of the last three!
That’s no [del]moon[/del] asteroid.
Apparently there is life on Ceres…
Ceresly?
Obviously, if there is life there you can’t call it a dwarf planet any more. It becomes a world, just like Earth. From now on be sure to make all references to “the world Ceres.”
Y so Ceres?
Great cliffhanger for a serial. Serial / cereal get it?
It’s a “Vacancy” sign. Satan put it there over two thousand years ago, in an unsuccessful attempt to trick Joseph and Mary into having their baby off-planet, so he wouldn’t have jurisdiction.
Not so. No one should discuss Ceres in any way until its inhabitants tell us how they prefer to be described.
For instance, if they were all dwarfs, they might object and insist their world be call a “little planet” instead of the insensitive “dwarf planet”. (For the love of Cthulhu, don’t call it a “midget planet!”)
A whole series of Ceres.
Thrilling
Perhaps the inhabitants are some sort of batlike creatures.
It might be too dangerous to visit them, then. We wouldn’t want any astronauts to be victims of a cereal killer.
Maybe. But do they have balls?
I once gave a jury award to an sf story of that name. 
What do you base all this on?
