Ceres
The smallest identified dwarf planet in the solar system. The only planet in the asteroid belt. A yet to be discovered land. These are just a few of the commonly known facts about the one and only... Ceres.
Ceres History:
This 950 km in diameter planet is a massive rock-ice body that is about a third of the mass of the asteroid belt. In fact, it could quite possibly be the biggest asteroid known to man. The credit goes the Giuseppe Piazzi for discovering Ceres on January 1, 1801. Surprisingly when it was first discovered, it was determined as a planet. However, it was soon realized to be an asteroid, the first one to ever be found.
The compostion of Ceres is mostly made up of mixtures and universal solvents of water-ice and minerals which means there could be mixtures of metals that could be the alloys that make up Ceres. The mantle appears to be icy and the core to be rocky. Also, many scientists and astronomers believe that it contains an ocean of liquid water underneath its surface and there is no evidence of dissolving which means there are no solutes in this water. Even at its very brightest points it is dim to the bare eye and its apparent magnitude from earth ranges from 6.7 to 9.3. Although Ceres has never been discovered, that does not mean the astronomers don't plan on traveling there. In fact, once the unmanned spacecraft, "Dawn" arrives back to Earth in 2015, it is expected to be launched to Ceres to be the first to explore it.The video below shows this...
Information above found from :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)