Never explored

Things orbit the Earth all the time.  We're used to it.  Thousands of satellites give information to governments and companies every second of every day.  We wouldn't really have some of our beloved cell phone features like Skype and weather radars without those orbiting machines above our heads in an atmosphere we can't see through.

So, what was the big deal last Friday when the news reported another orbiter dropping into orbit?  OH, it was not our planet.  Ever heard of Ceres?  Yeah, that planet.

We've orbited Mars a number of times, so again, what's the big deal?  The orbiter dropped into its orbit of Ceres on Friday to map a planet that most people have never heard of.  Ceres, you say?  Yeah, a little over 300,000,000 miles away... out there in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter... circling the sun with hundreds of other fragments of the solar system exactly in the position predicted for a major planet.  It's never been explored.

People are ecstatic about Dawn's, the orbiter's name, mission there.  On approach to the planet, Dawn snapped hundreds of pictures.  They show two bright spots in the craters of one side of the planet.  Also, vapor has been detected coming from the planet.  Now wouldn't that be just be the irony of the century!  We find life on a little dark planet that wasn't even discovered till 1851 and ignored completely because it's only one of those "fragments" out there floating around between the two larger and more interesting planets Mars and Jupiter.

Stay tuned.  In April, Dawn will be a mere 8500 miles above the planet photographing it to its heart's content.   

I love undiscovered territory.  I love the surprises it yields, the knowledge it adds, the secrets it reveals, the richness it brings with its freshness.  I have my own Dawn going on, dropping in to observe a recent, latent, ground-floor opportunity.  

I am hoping to find out what those bright spots are.