This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badges
71 pts · Epic
Epic78 pts → Anomaly
Ceres, the first asteroid ever found+24
Giant body (>500 km)+22
Dwarf planet+16
Has a proper name+8
Main-belt asteroid+1
Total score71
7 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
⚪Dwarf planet· +16
🏔️Giant body (>500 km)· +22
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
🥌Main-belt asteroid· +1
🌾Ceres, the first asteroid ever found· +24
✨ Trivia
Hard to believe
🥇Round under its own weight. Big enough that its own gravity has pulled it into a sphere — most of its neighbours are potato-shaped rubble.
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. A main-belt asteroid, one of millions circling between Mars and Jupiter. Despite the films, the belt is so empty that every spacecraft sent through it has crossed without aiming for anything.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 2.56 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 4.6 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 2.56 and 2.98 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 27% as wide as our Moon.
🚶Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 74.3 days.
🌍Against Earth. It is only 7% of Earth's width — you could pack about 2444 of it inside our planet.
Properties
aphelion au
2.9773
color
#9a8d7c
diameter km
946
eccentricity
0.0758
inclination
10.59
name
Ceres
named
yes
num moons
0
orbit class
MBA
orbital period days
1681.6
perihelion au
2.5577
radius km
473
semi major au
2.7675
About Ceres
Ceres is an epic dwarf planet. It completes an orbit every 1,681.6 days and swings within 2.558 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
A main-belt asteroid, one of millions circling between Mars and Jupiter. Despite the films, the belt is so empty that every spacecraft sent through it has crossed without aiming for anything.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Ceres is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Ceres is an epic dwarf planet
Ceres scores 71 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Dwarf planet, Giant body (>500 km), Has a proper name, Main-belt asteroid and Ceres, the first asteroid ever found — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.
📷 Real photo