This excerpt examines the obvious question on why people are so intrigued by this:

Why is that important? Well, clearly, the question “What the hell are those damn bright spots?” does have an answer. And whatever that answer is, it’s independent of our beliefs or our hopes. In other words, it’s an answer that’s out there right now. We, however, are stuck with ignorance — and the agony of ignorance — that’s particular to science.

I agree.  There is a fine line of patience with our understanding of the universe and pushing the envelope of our capabilities to not give up in our search for alien life.

Apparently we will be much closer to this mini planet/asteroid soon:

As Dawn moves closer to Ceres, Earth will be moving closer as well. Earth and Ceres travel on independent orbits around the sun, the former completing one revolution per year (indeed, that’s what defines a year) and the latter completing one revolution in 4.6 years (which is one Cerean year). (We have discussed before why Earth revolves faster in its solar orbit, but in brief it is because being closer to the sun, it needs to move faster to counterbalance the stronger gravitational pull.) Of course, now that Dawn is in a permanent gravitational embrace with Ceres, where Ceres goes, so goes Dawn. And they are now and forever more so close together that the distance between Earth and Ceres is essentially equivalent to the distance between Earth and Dawn.

On July 22, Earth and Dawn will be at their closest since June 2014. As Earth laps Ceres, they will be 1.94 AU (180 million miles, or 290 million kilometers) apart. Earth will race ahead on its tight orbit around the sun, and they will be more than twice as far apart early next year.

I am excited to keep following the developments in regards to the Ceres mystery.

thanks to npr.org for the great write-up

thanks to planetary.org for the great info

thanks to NASA for the pic