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Q. What is Ceres?
A. These folks had returned from a trip to New Mexico. Near Cloudcroft, they visited a solar observatory at a place called Sunspot. As they started the 15-mile drive on the Sunspot Byway, they saw a Neptune sign.
Eventually, they passed signs for Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter, in that order. As they were watching for the Mars sign, they came to Ceres. Then Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury which were relatively close to each other.
These travelers asked, “What is Ceres?” They knew Pluto suffered a planetary downgrade, but hadn’t heard about another planet named Ceres.
The website of the Sunspot National Solar observatory offers this basic information: "While driving through the town of Cloudcroft, and along NM Route 6563, you may have noticed blue highways signs bearing the names of the planets.
“Those are our scale model of the solar system. The concept is similar to a map — the distance from downtown Cloudcroft to the Visitors Center in Sunspot is scaled to correspond to the distance between the Sun and the dwarf planet Pluto. The other planets are placed along that route to scale with their distance from the Sun. It may surprise you just how close the Earth is to the Sun on this scale!”
As you will have noticed, the Sunspot website doesn’t mention Ceres.
Time to head for the books. The “National Geographic Kids” series includes “The Space Encyclopedia: A Tour of Our Solar System and Beyond” which was published in 2013. The index referred me to Ceres and the asteroid belt: “Ceres is one of the dwarf planets, a classification established in 2006.
“Astronomers have known about Ceres since 1801. When it was first discovered they thought it might be the ‘missing planet’ that many astronomers believed orbited between Mars and Jupiter.
“For the next half a century, it was called a planet. But then more and more large rocks, called asteroids, were discovered in that region of space. So, Ceres was reclassified as the largest of more than 200,000 asteroids, and there it remained until its status changed to dwarf planet.
“About 585 miles in diameter, much smaller than our moon, Ceres is in the heart of the asteroid belt. Its mass is almost a third of the entire mass of the millions of asteroids in the belt.
“Asteroids come in all shapes and sizes, but these relics of the early solar system aren’t crammed together as they’re sometimes shown in science fiction movies.
“Occasionally, the influence of Jupiter’s gravity can nudge an asteroid out of orbit, sending it in toward the sun. When that happens, the asteroid can strike one of the terrestrial planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”
Let’s turn to the “Handy Space Answer Book” to follow up on that idea: “Could asteroids collide with Earth? One group of asteroids called Apollo objects, do cross Earth’s orbit. These bodies may come relatively close to the earth. Some asteroids have even collided with Earth.
“For instance, in 1908, an asteroid about a tenth of a mile in diameter came through the atmosphere and exploded above central Siberia. The blast caused a mushroom cloud, scorched and uprooted trees for miles around, and wiped out a herd of reindeer. It shattered windows six hundred miles away.”
Do you have space-loving children? Call 512-393-8200 now for details on the San Marcos Public Library's Saturday, July 13 Jedi Saber Guild event and our Aug. 6 and 7 StarLab Mobile Planetarium shows. Space is limited and you will want to pick up a free ticket as soon as they are available. Tickets are available beginning June 28 for young Jedi and beginning July 23 for the planetarium sessions.
Ceres Answer Two — Are there any silently-fuming scholars of Greek and Roman mythology still reading? Let’s turn to “New Cyclopedia of Names,” one of my favorite older (1954) reference books: “Ceres: In ancient Italian mythology, the goddess of grain and harvest, later identified by the Romans with the Greek Demeter.”
