The latest views of the dwarf planet Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft reveal hints of craters — and a relatively bright spot that's been a mystery for more than a decade. The black-and-white snapshots were taken on Jan. 13 from a distance of 238,000 miles (383,000 kilometers) and released on Monday. It's still a fuzzy view, with 80 percent of the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope's images of Ceres from 2003-2004, but the picture will get much sharper as Dawn approaches for a rendezvous in March. 
 
 The white spot showed up in Hubble's earlier images. Although scientists can't yet say exactly what it is, the best hypothesis is that it's a frozen pool of water ice at the bottom of a crater, clear enough to reflect sunlight. Scientists have detected puffs of water vapor emanating from Ceres that could hint at subsurface reservoirs of liquid water. That naturally leads to speculation about life on Ceres, which is the biggest object in the main asteroid belt as well as the smallest known dwarf planet. Will Ceres' mysteries be solved in March? Stay tuned. 
 
 IN-DEPTH 
 
 SOCIAL 
 
 — Alan Boyle 
 
 First published January 19 2015, 11:03 AM ||||| It is small. It is round. 
 
 It was once a planet, but is now cast off as too diminutive. 
 
 In March, a NASA spacecraft will arrive there to begin the first close-up examination of a dwarf planet. 
 
 It is not Pluto. 
 
 It is instead Ceres, 600 miles wide, the largest of the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. “We’re going to reveal the fascinating details of a giant world of rock and ice,” said Marc Rayman, the chief engineer for NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. 
 
 “It’s not like we’re just going out to visit a chunk of rock the size of one of those mountains,” he said, pointing to the San Gabriel Mountains outside the windows at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Ceres has 38 percent of the area of the continental United States. It’s actually the largest body between the sun and Pluto that a spacecraft has not yet visited.” 
 
 A year ago, the Herschel Space Observatory discovered water vapor rising off two spots on Ceres, possibly a sign of ice volcanism. “Ceres may have subsurface ponds or lakes or even oceans of water,” Dr. Rayman said.
– After years of preparation, NASA is about to learn a lot more about an asteroid that, a scientist says, is "actually the largest body between the sun and Pluto that a spacecraft has not yet visited." In exploring the 600-mile-wide Ceres, "we're going to reveal the fascinating details of a giant world of rock and ice," engineer Marc Rayman tells the New York Times. There may be a substantial amount of water, too, including "ponds or lakes or even oceans"; vapor coming off the body has suggested the presence of water. Ceres has been classified as a dwarf planet, like Pluto, which is also due for a new investigation. The New Horizons spacecraft, already on its way to Pluto, will be at its closest on July 14; at that point, if the asteroid were New York, "we could count the ponds in Central Park." That should help experts learn answers to all kinds of questions, like why Pluto has turned redder in recent years and whether it has rings. As for Ceres, which has been familiar to scientists since 1801, the Dawn spacecraft could reveal more about a mysterious light spot on the dwarf planet. It could be ice that's reflecting sunlight from a crater, NBC News reports. And hints of water bring questions about the possibility of life. (That's one thing a Mars probe was looking for before it was lost—and then, recently, discovered again.)