May 4, 2022
Tonight at 9 pm, the dwarf planet Ceres is situated less than 5° from the waxing crescent Moon in the western sky. Although Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to Earth, it is not big enough to see with the naked eye. Ceres is approximately 588 miles (946 km) in diameter, which makes it the largest object in the Asteroid Belt but one of the smallest dwarf planets.
The dwarf planet Ceres as seen by the Dawn spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
