Ceres

Largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet there; bright salt deposits suggest underground water.

What it is

Dwarf planet: Round, but shares its orbit with other rubble. Every kind of thing there is →

How to find Ceres

Its position moves, so there is no fixed place on a map to point at. The Planetarium works out where it is for your own place and date.

Show me Ceres in tonight's sky

What you will really see

Through a small telescope

A faint point of light — a star chart across several nights shows it moving.

Honest, not glamorous — why the pictures here are drawn.

🔭 See it drawn as it looks through a telescope

Worth knowing about Ceres

Ceres is largest object in the asteroid belt, but still small -- about 1/14 of Earth. In weight, about 1/6,500th of Earth. Sunlight takes 23 minutes to reach Ceres — on average, because that distance changes as it goes round. Its year: about the time to go through elementary school. Its day: ~9 hours.

Its surface: Rocky/icy, bright salt deposits, possible underground water.; How we know: The Dawn spacecraft's instruments identified Ceres's bright spots as sodium carbonate -- a salt left behind when briny water evaporates -- which only makes sense if liquid water once (or still) exists underground. Rung 3 — the shape of the solar system
The machines we sent: Dawn orbited Ceres 2015-2018.

The numbers

Across	939 km
Distance from the Sun, on average	2.8 AU · sunlight takes 23 minutes
Once round its orbit	4.6 Earth years
One day there	9.1 hours
Made of, among other things	water, rock (basalt)