NASA's Dawn spacecraft has captured pictures of strange bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres. The image counted in a series of ‘best bright spot photos yet’ was taken while Dawn is approaching Ceres.

Ceres is the largest body in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Researchers have not unveiled the reason behind the bright spots. In fact, with the latest NASA images, the interest in Ceres has witnessed a spike.

The American space agency has opened a voting pool in which it has asked people to share what they think is causing the reflectivity. Choices given in the voting are ice, volcano, geyser, salt deposit and other category.

As per current polling, ‘other’ is leading in list of options. After the ‘other’ category, people are voting ‘ice’ as the possible option for the cause of the spots. Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell said that researchers are aware of the fact that these patches have been formed through a highly reflective material on dwarf planet’s surface. There are chances that it could be frozen water.

On May 16, the image was clicked when Dawn flew about 4,500 miles from the surface of Ceres. Till June 30, Dawn will remain in the orbit and during that stay. It will go in for a closer look at the planet.

“Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice”, affirmed Russell.

Dawn is the first human-made probe that started orbiting Ceres in March 2015. Before coming to Ceres, Dawn has explored the large asteroid Vesta present in the main belt of asteroids.