philthejanitak: Ok. So everybody knows about Pluto and has been throwing a pity party for since it’s
philthejanitak: Ok. So everybody knows about Pluto and has been throwing a pity party for since it’s status was changed to a dwarf planet, But no one ever even mentions this lovely lady. This is ceres, The first dwarf planet to be discovered in our solar system. She was only classified as a planet for about 50 years and was given a planetary symbol and everything. Located in the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars, she is the smallest of the 5 dwarf planets in our solar system. (The second picture shows her to scale with the earth and the moon.) She was discovered January 1st, 1801. Her surface (probably) consists of clay and frozen water, with an ice mantle (That may contain liquid water due to the intense pressure.) surrounding a rocky core. She is the largest body in the asteroid belt, and will be explored for the first time in 2015. When she lost her status as a planet, there was no such thing as as dwarf planets, she was just an asteroid and was renamed Asteroid 1, Ceres. Basically, if you want to make a pit-stop between Earth and Mars, or mine the asteroid belt, Ceres is prime real estate for a colony. (Maybe a big honking one in orbit above it so you can simulate higher gravity, but it’s still the prime location.) So, yeah, if you’re going to include Pluto as planet that get’s left out, include Ceres too. By the way, the other dwarf planets in our solar system are Eris, Makemake, & Haumea. -- source link