Ceres is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has adopted two themes for naming surface features on Ceres: agricultural deities for craters and agricultural festivals for everything else.
As of 2020, the IAU has approved names for 151 geological features on Ceres: craters, montes, catenae, rupÃÂs, plana, tholi, planitiae, fossae and sulci. In July 2018, NASA released a comparison of physical features found on Ceres with similar ones present on Earth.
Piazzi, named after Giuseppe Piazzi, the discoverer of Ceres, is a dark region southwest of Dantu crater in ground-based images that was named before Dawn arrived at Ceres.
Ceres is saturated with impact craters. Many have a central pit or bright spot.
In the first batch of 17 names approved by the IAU, craters north of 20ð north latitude had names beginning with A–G (with Asari being the furthest north), those between 20ð north and south latitude beginning with H–R, and those further south beginning with S–Z (with Zadeni being the furthest south).
A few of the brightest faculae were numbered during the approach of the Dawn spacecraft.
The three planitiae may be large and largely obliterated craters.