Researchers, using images from Dawn’s framing camera, suggest that these salt-rich areas were left behind when water-ice sublimated in the past. Impacts from asteroids would have unearthed the mixture of ice and salt.
An image of Occator Crater (below) shows the brightest material on Ceres. Occator itself is 60 miles in diameter, and its central pit, covered by this bright material, measures about 6 miles wide. With its sharp rim and walls, it appears to be among the youngest features on the dwarf planet.