NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took these images of Ceres during its 9-hour rotation.
The colors represent the differences between relatively red and blue regions. These differences may simply be due to variation on the surface among different types of material.
Astronomers enhanced the sharpness in these images to bring out features on Ceres' surface, including brighter and darker regions that could be asteroid impact features. The observations were made in visible and ultraviolet light between December 2003 and January 2004.
Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Parker (Southwest Research Institute), P. Thomas (Cornell University), L. McFadden (University of Maryland, College Park), and M. Mutchler and Z. Levay (STScI)