CERES

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt and the only dwarf planet located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered in 1801 by the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. At first, Ceres was classified as a planet, later as an asteroid, and finally as a dwarf planet after the International Astronomical Union introduced the modern classification in 2006. Ceres is large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape. Its surface contains craters, mountains and bright deposits that are particularly visible inside some impact craters. NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited Ceres from 2015 to 2018 and provided the most detailed observations of the dwarf planet. Scientists found evidence that Ceres contains large amounts of water ice and may have had a subsurface brine reservoir in the past.