Someone looking for "Plumes"?viscount aero wrote:The thing is that so much jumping to conclusions is happening while closeups of the region haven't even been released yet. There isn't enough visual data to know anything. So all of this assumption is erroneous.
A brief recapitulation of some things:
Recall Rosetta and the fact that “bright spots” can arise due to image processing:
It is quite dark in outer space obviously. In order to reveal emissivity both brightness and contrast have to be manipulated as demonstrated here:Rosetta’s OSIRIS team have produced a colour image of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as it would be seen by the human eye. As anticipated, the comet turns out to be very grey indeed, with only slight, subtle colour variations seen across its surface. - Comet 67P/C-G in living colour
Note that these regions on Comet 67P are now referred to as “active pit” as opposed to the former “craters” with ‘ice’ lurking in their shadows. Any manipulated black and white image from space can have this effect after processing whether comet or moon. At the very bottom of the following page is a slider that allows the image to be zoomed. The Apollo 13 Saturn IVB impact crater can be found along with several other “bright spots”:Active pit detected in Seth region of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. This is an OSIRIS narrow-angle camera image acquired on 28 August 2014 from a distance of 60 km. The image resolution is 1 m/pixel. Enhancing the contrast (right) reveals fine structures in the shadow of the pit, interpreted as jet-like features rising from the pit. Active pit
Apollo 13 SIVB Impact
Black and white image of planet Mercury
I think most images like these throughout history have mislead a lot of theorist. Current images of Ceres are having the same impact (water vapor, "outgassing", geologically active, "venting" etc). The nature of the activity that is being sought after (electrical effects) are more pronounced with the presence of “plumes” such as with Jupiters moon Io, or Saturn’s moon Enceladus, or the fairly recent activity on Mars.
These plumes are usually noticed or found by accident. They are not purposefully sought after and again take advantage of image processing to be revealed as exemplified by the earlier references. Unless the Dawn space craft is positioned so as reveal the possibility of plumes associated to the prominent bright spots of Ceres …
Fortunately, the association of bright spots with plumes is becoming one of those things on the list of things to look for and is already being (shall we say) 'typically assessed'. The **possibility** of ‘Plumes’ associated with the bright spots on Ceres does exist.