Ceres stamp

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Ceres is a dwarf planet and the largest object in the so-called asteroid belt, approximately the region between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. Named after the Roman goddess of agriculture and discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, Ceres was considered a planet for half a century and was subsequently known as an asteroid. The 2006 debate surrounding the status of Pluto also raised attention to the objects of the asteroid belt, which led to Ceres’ classification as a dwarf planet. Ceres by itself constitutes nearly 40% of the mass in the asteroid belt and consists mainly of rock and ice. On 6 March 2015, the NASA space probe Dawn reached Ceres and entered its orbit, marking the first exploration of a dwarf planet in history.

Aphelion: 446,428,973 km
Perihelion: 380,951,528 km
Diameter at equator: 952.4 km
Rotation period (1 day): 9.075 Earth hours
Orbital period (1 year): 4.60 Earth years
Av. orbital speed: 17.882 km/s
Av. surface temperature: -105°C
Mass (Earth = 1): 0.00015
Satellites: 0

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