1. Ceres Orbits Mars
2. Ceres Orbital Inclination
3. Ceres Dwarf Planet Orbit
4. Ceres Orbit Diagram
5. How Far Is Ceres From Earth
6. Ceres Orbit Time

Ceres is the only dwarf planet in the inner Solar System and is the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

1. The approximate diameter of Ceres is 960 x 932 km. The orbital inclination, the angle at which Ceres orbits in relation to the orbital plane is 10.58862 degrees. The orbital eccentricity is 0.0775571, it is the degree at which Ceres orbits close to a circular (0) orbit as opposed to an elliptical (1) orbit.
2. Visualization of Dwarf Planet 1 Ceres Orbit. This 3d orbit diagram is a feature of our 3D Solar System Simulator and shows the orbit of Dwarf Planet 1 Ceres with respect of the Sun and the orbits of the major planets.The position of Dwarf Planet 1 Ceres and the planets along their orbits in this diagram accurately represents the current configuration of the objects in the Solar System.

Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system. It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801. And when Dawn arrived in 2015, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to receive a visit from a spacecraft.

Called an asteroid for many years, Ceres is so much bigger and so different from its rocky neighbors that scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006. Even though Ceres comprises 25 percent of the asteroid belt's total mass, tiny Pluto is still 14 times more massive.

Ceres is named for the Roman goddess of corn and harvests. The word cereal comes from the same name.

Size and Distance

With a radius of 296 miles (476 kilometers), Ceres is 1/13 the radius of Earth. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Ceres would be about as big as a poppy seed.

From an average distance of 257 million miles (413 million kilometers), Ceres is 2.8 astronomical units away from the sun. One astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU), is the distance from the sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 22 minutes to travel from the sun to Ceres.

Orbit and Rotation

Ceres takes 1,682 Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the sun. As Ceres orbits the sun, it completes one rotation every 9 hours, making its day length one of the shortest in the solar system.

Ceres' axis of rotation is tilted just 4 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit around the sun. That means it spins nearly perfectly upright and doesn't experience seasons like other more tilted planets do.

Formation

Ceres formed along with the rest of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become a small dwarf planet. Scientists describe Ceres as an 'embryonic planet,' which means it started to form but didn't quite finish. Nearby Jupiter's strong gravity prevented it from becoming a fully formed planet. About 4 billion years ago, Ceres settled into its current location among the leftover pieces of planetary formation in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Structure

Ceres Orbits Mars

Structure

Ceres is more similar to the terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) than its asteroid neighbors, but it is much less dense. One of the similarities is a layered interior, but Ceres' layers aren’t as clearly defined. Ceres probably has a solid core and a mantle made of water ice. In fact, Ceres could be composed of as much as 25 percent water. If that is correct, Ceres has more water than Earth does. Ceres' crust is rocky and dusty with large salt deposits. The salts on Ceres aren’t like table salt (sodium chloride), but instead are made of different minerals like magnesium sulfate.

Surface

Ceres is covered in countless small, young craters, but none are larger than 175 miles (280 kilometers) in diameter. This is surprising, given that the dwarf planet must have been hit by numerous large asteroids during its 4.5 billion-year lifetime.

The lack of craters might be due to layers of ice just below the surface. The surface features could smooth out over time if ice or another lower-density material, such as salt, is just below the surface. It's also possible that past hydrothermal activity, such as ice volcanoes, erased some large craters.

Within some of Ceres' craters, there are regions that are always in shadow. It's possible that without direct sunlight, these 'cold traps' could have water ice in them for long periods of time.

Atmosphere

Ceres has a very thin atmosphere, and there is evidence it contains water vapor. The vapor may be produced by ice volcanoes or by ice near the surface sublimating (transforming from solid to gas).

Potential for Life

Potential for Life

Ceres is one of the few places in our solar system where scientists would like to search for possible signs of life. Ceres has something a lot of other planets don't: water. Here on Earth, water is essential for life, so it's possible that with this ingredient and a few other conditions met, life could maybe exist there. Living things on Ceres, if they are there at all, would likely be very small microbes similar to bacteria. And while Ceres might not have living things today, there could be signs it harbored life in the past.

Moons

Moons

Ceres does not have any moons.

Rings

Ceres does not have any rings.

Magnetosphere

Scientists don't think Ceres has a magnetosphere.

More Resources

Ceres Toolkit

News

• NASA News Portal: Dawn mission to Ceres and Vesta

Images

• Ceres: NASA Photojournal Ceres collection

Science Data

• Ceres Trek: Ceres data science visualization tool

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has become the first mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet. The spacecraft was approximately 38,000 miles (61,000) kilometers from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet’s gravity at about 4:39 a.m. PST (7:39 a.m. EST) Friday.

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California received a signal from the spacecraft at 5:36 a.m. PST (8:36 a.m. EST) that Dawn was healthy and thrusting with its ion engine, the indicator Dawn had entered orbit as planned.

“Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director at JPL. “Now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) and 7.5 years, Dawn calls Ceres, home.”

In addition to being the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet, Dawn also has the distinction of being the first mission to orbit two extraterrestrial targets. From 2011 to 2012, the spacecraft explored the giant asteroid Vesta, delivering new insights and thousands of images from that distant world. Ceres and Vesta are the two most massive residents of our solar system’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Ceres Orbital Inclination

The most recent images received from the spacecraft, taken on March 1 show Ceres as a crescent, mostly in shadow because the spacecraft’s trajectory put it on a side of Ceres that faces away from the sun until mid-April. When Dawn emerges from Ceres’ dark side, it will deliver ever-sharper images as it spirals to lower orbits around the planet.

Ceres Dwarf Planet Orbit

“We feel exhilarated,” said Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “We have much to do over the next year and a half, but we are now on station with ample reserves, and a robust plan to obtain our science objectives.”

Ceres Orbit Diagram

Dawn’s mission is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

How Far Is Ceres From Earth

For a complete list of mission participants, visit:

Ceres Orbit Time

For more information about Dawn, visit: