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The Discovery Of The Minor Planet Ceres

Ceres, the minor planet
NASA Solar

Ceres, a minor planet orbiting the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter, was discovered on New Year’s Day in 1801 by Giuesppe Piazzi, a Sicilian astronomer.

Ceres is a small world that is part of a vast region that is home to a large group of objects called asteroids. Even though Ceres is the largest object in the main asteroid belt it is still not visible to the naked eye but requires a pair of binoculars or a small telescope to observe it.  It is the only known object in the asteroid belt that has become round in shape due to its own gravity.

Like Pluto, Ceres was thought to be a planet when it was first discovered, but as more objects in the region between Mars and Jupiter were discovered it was demoted to be part of the group of objects known as asteroids. 

In 2006 because of the debate about Pluto and what it means to be a planet, Ceres was reclassified again as a minor planet along with Pluto. It is the only unambiguous minor planet inside the orbit of Neptune.

Because it is farther from the sun than Mars, it takes 4.6 years to make one orbit around the sun compared to the orbital period of Mars which is 1.9 years. Ceres is composed largely of ice and rock and covered with many craters.

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