NASA's Dawn spacecraft has photographed the dwarf planet Ceres' bright spots and these images are considered to be the best among the ones captured so far. But scientists are still not clear about its peculiar features.

In the new images, the bright spots on Ceres are seen resolved into many points of varying sizes. According to researchers, the brightest ones are located within a crater approximately 55 miles (90 kilometers) wide. A video tour of Ceres' strange white spots is also available on Space. com. One can see here how the strange features have been observed by Dawn over the last two months.

According to Dawn principal investigator Chris Russell of UCLA, "The bright spots in this configuration make Ceres unique from anything we've seen before in the solar system. Reflection from ice is the leading candidate in my mind, but the team continues to consider alternate possibilities, such as salt".

This month, the images have been captured by Dawn from its second mapping orbit of Ceres; it is an orbit that lies approximately 2,700 miles (4,400 km) above the surface of the world that has a large number of craters. However, the probe will reach even closer to the dwarf planet in a little while so much so that it may eventually take the bright spots' measure.

Dawn will start moving to an orbit with an altitude of 900 miles (1,450 km) on June 28 and ultimately reach there in early August. Russell said in the same statement that they will be able to better understand the nature of this mysterious phenomenon with multiple view angles and closer views from the new orbit.