Saturday, 6 April 2013

solar system - Would I actually be able to see Ceres without shining a really bright torch onto it?

NASA's put out a semi-CGI video of a Ceres flyby using material from the Dawn mission.



Now I realise that visibility is relative, even on Earth: I can walk into my basement and not be able to see anything until I've stood there for a few moments letting my eyes adjust. But I'm wondering, since Ceres is so far from Earth, and despite the images we see beamed back from spacecraft, if I were on a spacecraft in orbit of Ceres, facing the side of Ceres that faces the Sun, would I be able to see its surface with the naked eye? Or is sunlight too dim at that distance to do the job on its own?

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