The events in Star Wars happened a long time ago, which might explain why we haven’t been paying attention for any signs of the galaxy far, far away in our own corner of the universe. But that’s no excuse for why it took so long for someone to notice there’s a crater on the dwarf planet Ceres that looks exactly like The Force Awakens BB-8. And you better believe it’s the most adorable crater we’ve ever seen.
The rock and icy dwarf planet Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt (about the size of Texas) located between Mars and Jupiter, and in March of 2015 NASA’s Dawn spacecraft entered its orbit and took some incredibly detailed photos of its surface, including its Occator crater. That was only a few months before we were introduced to BB-8, but no one seems to have made this connection.
JPL’s mission operations engineer Keri Bean is the literal genius who finally realized the crater is shaped just like our favorite ball astromech droid. It has a large round body with a half ball head, and once you realize that’s the exact figure as BB-8 that’s all you can see.
It was right there! Does this mean we should immediately send a mission to Ceres to rescue Poe? Or should we just assume he’ll show up later safe and sound with a flimsy explanation for how he survived?
But even though it took us too long to realize there’s a crater paying homage to Star Wars so close to Earth, at least this is a perfect excuse to learn more about Ceres and its BB-8/Occator crater, because it’s far more interesting than it’s familiar shape.
Now let’s all start checking out other celestial bodies to make sure we haven’t missed an R2-D2 shaped mountain range, or a supernova that reminds us of the Millennium Falcon.
Are there any other natural features in the galaxy that remind you of something else? Share them with us in the comments below.
Need More Crazy Science?
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Images: NASA, Lucasfilm
