8 possible explanations for those bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres

It's a real-life mystery cliffhanger. We've come up with a list of possible reasons a large crater on the biggest object in the asteroid belt looks lit up like a Christmas tree.

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5. Ice volcanoes. This explanation kicks off the second, more out-there half of our list. Cryovolcanoes, or volcanoes that spew water or ice rather than lava, are believed to exist in the colder reaches of the solar system, and it would make sense to see them on Ceres given what's suspected about its water and ice content. However, the observations of the area around the bright spot give no indication that there are raised sections consistent with a volcano or piles of whatever type of debris it might fling about.

6. Aliens' solar concentrators. In a 2008 TED talk, physicist and futurist Freeman Dyson suggested that the dwarf planets of the outer solar system, near Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, would be a good place to look for life. Dyson thought that although finding it might be unlikely, it might not be that hard to search if we simply looked for the reflection of the mirrors and lenses that any life forms would surely need to concentrate sunlight to survive on places like Europa and beyond. It sounds far out, but could it be that we've just found some ancient, abandoned solar concentrators even closer to home than Dyson imagined?

7. Genetically engineered colonists from another civilization. In the same talk, Dyson also suggested that if we don't find life forms hanging out in the cold reaches of the outer solar system, we should genetically engineer our own life forms to go check it out. Obviously, we haven't reached that point yet, and we tend to favor sending robots rather than clones of ourselves with frost and radiation resistance, but what if another distant civilization beat us to the punch and has sent mutant, genetically enhanced images of themselves to start poking around in our asteroid belt?

8. It's a spacecraft. Finally, as many of you devoted CNET readers have suggested, the bright spots on Ceres seem to resemble headlights.


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