Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon Holmes, Don DeLillo, Edith Wharton; the firm published Scribner's Magazine for many years. More several Scribner titles and authors have garnered Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and other merits. In 1978 the company became The Scribner Book Companies. In turn it merged into Macmillan in 1984. Simon & Schuster bought Macmillan in 1994. By this point only the trade book and reference book operations still bore the original family name; the former imprint, now "Scribner," was retained by Simon & Schuster, while the reference division has been owned by Gale since 1999. As of 2012, Scribner is a division of Simon & Schuster under the title Scribner Publishing Group which includes the Touchstone Books imprint.
The president of Scribner as of 2017 is Susan Moldow, the current publisher is Nan Graham. The firm was founded in 1846 by Charles Scribner I and Isaac D. Baker as "Baker & Scribner." After Baker's death, Scribner bought the remainder of the company and renamed it the "Charles Scribner Company." In 1865, the company made its first venture into magazine publishing with Hours at Home. In 1870, the Scribners organized a new firm and Company, to publish a magazine entitled Scribner’s Monthly. After the death of Charles Scribner I in 1871, his son John Blair Scribner took over as president of the company, his other sons Charles Scribner II and Arthur Hawley Scribner would join the firm, in 1875 and 1884. They each served as presidents; when the other partners in the venture sold their stake to the family, the company was renamed Charles Scribner's Sons. The company launched St. Nicholas Magazine in 1873 with Mary Mapes Dodge as editor and Frank R. Stockton as assistant editor; when the Scribner family sold the magazine company to outside investors in 1881, Scribner’s Monthly was renamed the Century Magazine.
The Scribners brothers were enjoined from publishing any magazine for a period of five years. In 1886, at the expiration of this term, they launched Scribner's Magazine; the firm's headquarters were in the Scribner Building, built in 1893, on lower Fifth Avenue at 21st Street, in the Charles Scribner's Sons Building, on Fifth Avenue in midtown. Both buildings were designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style; the children's book division was established in 1934 under the leadership of Alice Dalgliesh. It published works by distinguished authors and illustrators including N. C. Wyeth, Robert A. Heinlein, Marcia Brown, Will James, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Leo Politi; as of 2011 the publisher is owned by the CBS Corporation. Simon & Schuster reorganized their adult imprints into four divisions in 2012. Scribner became the Scribner Publishing Group and would expand to include Touchstone Books, part of Free Press; the other divisions are Atria Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster Publishing Group, the Gallery Publishing Group.
The new Scribner division would be led by Susan Moldow as president. Charles Scribner I, 1846 to 1871 John Blair Scribner, 1871 to 1879 Charles Scribner II, 1879 to 1930 Arthur Hawley Scribner, circa 1900 Charles Scribner III, 1932 to 1952 Charles Scribner IV, 1952 to 1984 Edith Wharton Henry James Ernest Hemingway Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Ring Lardner Thomas Wolfe Reinhold Niebuhr F. Scott Fitzgerald Thomas Wolfe Ernest Hemingway Ring Lardner Erskine Caldwell S. S. Van Dine James Jones Simon & Schuster has published thousands of books from thousands of authors; this list represents some of the more notable authors from Scribner since becoming part of Simon & Schuster. For a more extensive list see List of Schuster authors. Annie Proulx Andrew Solomon Anthony Doerr Don DeLillo Frank McCourt Stephen King Jeanette Walls Baker & Scribner, until the death of Baker in 1850 Charles Scribner Company Charles Scribner's Sons Scribner The Scribner Bookstores are now owned by Barnes & Noble. Charles Scribner I List of Simon & Schuster Authors Scribner's Monthly Scribner's Magazine Simon & Schuster Scribner Building Roger Burlingame, Of Making Many Books: A Hundred Years of Reading and Publishing, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946.
The House of Scribner "Scribner Magazine online". 1889-1939. Retrieved 2012-04-24. Charles Scribner's Sons at Thomson Gale Archives of Charles Scribner’s Sons at the Princeton University Library, Manuscript Division Charles Scribner's Sons Art Reference Department records at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Charles Scribner's Sons: An Illustrated Chronology Princeton Library
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology. Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman" expanded as Fahrenheit 451. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production; when Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time. Under Pohl Galaxy had continued success publishing fiction by writers such as Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg. Pohl never won the annual Hugo Award for his stewardship of Galaxy, winning three Hugos instead for its sister magazine, If.
In 1969 Guinn sold Galaxy to Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation and Pohl resigned, to be replaced by Ejler Jakobsson. Under Jakobsson the magazine declined in quality, it recovered under James Baen, who took over in mid-1974, but when he left at the end of 1977 the deterioration resumed, there were financial problems—writers were not paid on time and the schedule became erratic. By the end of the 1970s the gaps between issues were lengthening, the title was sold to Galileo publisher Vincent McCaffrey, who brought out only a single issue in 1980. A brief revival as a semi-professional magazine followed in 1994, edited by H. L. Gold's son, E. J. Gold. At its peak, Galaxy influenced the science fiction genre, it was regarded as one of the leading sf magazines from the start, its influence did not wane until Pohl's departure in 1969. Gold brought a "sophisticated intellectual subtlety" to magazine science fiction according to Pohl, who added that "after Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naive."
SF historian David Kyle agreed, commenting that "of all the editors in and out of the post-war scene, the most influential beyond any doubt was H. L. Gold". Kyle suggested that the new direction Gold set "inevitably" led to the experimental New Wave, the defining science fiction literary movement of the 1960s; the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, appeared in 1926. By the end of the 1930s, the genre was flourishing in the United States, but World War II and its resulting paper shortages led to the demise of several magazines. In the late 1940s, the market began to recover. From a low of eight active US magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 just four years later. Galaxy's appearance in 1950 was part of this boom. According to sf historian and critic Mike Ashley, its success was the main reason for a subsequent flood of new releases: 22 more science fiction magazines appeared by 1954, when the market dipped again as a side effect of US Senate hearings into the putative connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency.
H. L. Gold, Galaxy's first editor, had worked at Standard Magazines in the early 1940s as an assistant editor, reading for Standard's three science fiction pulps: Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder, Captain Future. With the advent of the war, Gold left publishing and went into the army, but in late 1949 he was approached by Vera Cerutti, who had once worked for him. Cerutti was now working for a French-Italian publisher, Éditions Mondiales Del Duca founded by Cino Del Duca, that had opened an office in New York as World Editions, she asked Gold for guidance on how to produce a magazine, which he provided. World Editions took a heavy loss on Fascination, its first attempt to launch a US magazine, Cerutti returned to Gold asking for recommendations for new titles. Gold knew about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a digest launched in the fall of 1949, but felt that there was still room in the market for another serious science fiction magazine, he sent a prospectus to World Editions that included a proposal for a series of paperback sf novels as well as a periodical, proposed paying three cents a word, an impressively high rate, given that most competing magazines were paying only one cent a word.
World Editions agreed, hired Gold as the editor, the first issue appeared in October 1950. The novel series subsequently appeared as Galaxy Science Fiction Novels. Gold suggested two titles for the magazine, If and Galaxy. Gold's art director, Washington Irving van der Poel, mocked up multiple layouts and Gold invited hundreds of writers, editors and fans to view them and vote for their favorite. For the first issue, Gold obtained stories by several well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, as well as part one of Time Quarry by Clifford D. Simak. Along with an essay by Gold, Galaxy's premiere issue introduced a book review column by anthologist Groff Conklin, which ran until 1955, a Willy Ley science column. Gold sought to implement high-quality printing techniques, though the quality of the available paper was insufficient for the full benefits to be seen. Within months, the outbreak of the Korean War led to paper shortages that forced Gold to find a new printer, Robert M. Guinn.
The new paper was of lower quality, a disappointment to Gold. According to Gold, the magazine was profitable within five issues: an "incredible" achievement, in his words. In
To Sail Beyond the Sunset
To Sail Beyond the Sunset is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1987, it was the last novel published before his death in 1988. The title is taken by Alfred Lord Tennyson; the stanza of which it is a part, quoted by a character in the novel, is as follows: It is the final part of the "Lazarus Long" cycle of stories, involving time travel, parallel dimensions, free love, voluntary incest, a concept that Heinlein named pantheistic solipsism, or'World as Myth': the theory that universes are created by the act of imagining them, so that somewhere the Land of Oz is real. Other books in the cycle include Methuselah's Children, Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls; the book is a memoir of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, mother and eventual wife of Lazarus Long. Maureen is ostensibly recording the events of the book while held in prison alongside Pixel, the eponymous character of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. Maureen, born on July 4, 1882, recounts her girlhood in backcountry Missouri, discovery that her family is a member of the long-lived Howard Families, marriage to Brian Smith, another member of that group, her life—largely in Kansas City—until her apparent death in 1982.
In addition, Maureen lives through, gives her viewpoints on many events in other Heinlein stories, most notably the 1917 visit from the future by "Ted Bronson", told from Long's point of view in Time Enough for Love, D. D. Harriman's space program from The Man Who Sold the Moon, the rolling roads from The Roads Must Roll. Maureen's adventures include a series of sexual encounters, beginning in childhood wherein, having just had her first sexual intercourse, she is examined by her father, a doctor, finds herself desiring him sexually, her story encompasses various boys, her husband, other women's husbands, swinging sessions, the adult Lazarus Long/Theodore Bronson. Additionally, she continues a lifelong pursuit of her father sexually, encourages her husband to have sexual intercourse with their daughters, accompanies him when he does. All of these are set against a history lesson of an alternate 20th century in which a variety of social and philosophical commentary is delivered, she is rescued from prison by Lazarus Long and other characters of various novels in the ship Gay Deceiver, after rescuing her father from certain death in the Battle of Britain, is united with her descendants in a massive group marriage in the settlement of Boondock, on the planet Tertius.
Maureen ends her memoir and the Lazarus Long saga with the phrase "And we all lived ever after". To Sail Beyond the Sunset title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database To Sail Beyond the Sunset on Open Library at the Internet Archive
Noah
In Abrahamic religions, Noah was the tenth and last of the pre-Flood Patriarchs. The story of Noah's Ark is told in the Bible's Genesis flood narrative; the biblical account is followed by the story of the Curse of Ham. In addition to the Book of Genesis, Noah is mentioned in the Old Testament in the First Book of Chronicles, the books of Tobit, Sirach, Ezekiel, 2 Esdras, 4 Maccabees. Noah was the subject of much elaboration in the literature of Abrahamic religions, including the Quran; the primary account of Noah in the Bible is in the Book of Genesis. Noah was the tenth of the Pre-Flood Patriarchs, his father was Lamech and his mother is not named in the biblical accounts. When Noah was five hundred years old, he became the father of Shem and Japheth; the Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Bible. The narrative, one of many flood myths found in human cultures, indicates that God intended to return the Earth to its pre-Creation state of watery chaos by flooding the Earth because of humanity's misdeeds and remake it using the microcosm of Noah's ark.
Thus, the flood was no ordinary overflow but a reversal of Creation. The narrative discusses the evil of mankind that moved God to destroy the world by the way of the flood, the preparation of the ark for certain animals and his family, God's guarantee for the continued existence of life under the promise that he would never send another flood. After the flood, Noah offered burnt offerings to God, who said: "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, said unto them, Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth". They were told that all fowls, land animals, fishes would be afraid of them. Furthermore, as well as green plants, every moving thing would be their food with the exception that the blood was not to be eaten. Man's life blood would be required from man. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man". A rainbow, called "my bow", was given as the sign of a covenant "between me and you and every living creature that with you, for perpetual generations", called the Noahic covenant or the rainbow covenant.
Noah died 350 years after the flood, at the age of 950, the last of the long-lived Antediluvian patriarchs. The maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible diminishes thereafter, from 1,000 years to the 120 years of Moses. After the flood, the Bible says that Noah became a husbandman and he planted a vineyard, he drank wine made from this vineyard, got drunk. Noah's son Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his brothers, which led to Ham's son Canaan being cursed by Noah; as early as the Classical era, commentators on Genesis 9:20–21 have excused Noah's excessive drinking because he was considered to be the first wine drinker. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, a Church Father, wrote in the 4th century that Noah's behavior is defensible: as the first human to taste wine, he would not know its effects: "Through ignorance and inexperience of the proper amount to drink, fell into a drunken stupor". Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher excused Noah by noting that one can drink in two different manners: to drink wine in excess, a peculiar sin to the vicious evil man or to partake of wine as the wise man, Noah being the latter.
In Jewish tradition and rabbinic literature on Noah, rabbis blame Satan for the intoxicating properties of the wine. In the field of psychological biblical criticism, J. H. Ellens and W. G. Rollins address the narrative of Genesis 9:18–27 that narrates the unconventional behavior that occurs between Noah and Ham; because of its brevity and textual inconsistencies, it has been suggested that this narrative is a "splinter from a more substantial tale". A fuller account would explain what Ham had done to his father, or why Noah directed a curse at Canaan for Ham's misdeed, or how Noah came to know what occurred; the narrator relates two facts: Noah became drunken and "he was uncovered within his tent", Ham "saw the nakedness of his father, told his two brethren without". Thus, these passages revolve around sexuality and the exposure of genitalia as compared with other Hebrew Bible texts, such as Habakkuk 2:15 and Lamentations 4:21. Other commentaries mention that seeing someone's nakedness could mean having sex with that person as seen in Leviticus 18:7-8 and Leviticus 20:11.
Genesis 10 sets forth the descendants of Shem and Japheth, from whom the nations branched out over the earth after the flood. Among Japheth’s descendants were the maritime nations. Ham’s son Cush had a son named Nimrod, who became the first man of might on earth, a mighty hunter, king in Babylon and the land of Shinar. From there Asshur built Nineveh. Canaan’s descendants – Sidon, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, the Hamathites – spread out from Sidon as far as Gerar, near Gaza, as far as Sodom and Gomorrah. Among Shem’s descendants was Eber; these genealogies differ structurally from those set out in Genesis 5 and 11. It has a segmented or treelike structure, going from one father to many offs
Moon
The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth and is Earth's only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, the largest among planetary satellites relative to the size of the planet that it orbits; the Moon is after Jupiter's satellite Io the second-densest satellite in the Solar System among those whose densities are known. The Moon is thought to have formed not long after Earth; the most accepted explanation is that the Moon formed from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body called Theia. The Moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth, thus always shows the same side to Earth, the near side; the near side is marked by dark volcanic maria that fill the spaces between the bright ancient crustal highlands and the prominent impact craters. After the Sun, the Moon is the second-brightest visible celestial object in Earth's sky, its surface is dark, although compared to the night sky it appears bright, with a reflectance just higher than that of worn asphalt.
Its gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, the slight lengthening of the day. The Moon's average orbital distance is 1.28 light-seconds. This is about thirty times the diameter of Earth; the Moon's apparent size in the sky is the same as that of the Sun, since the star is about 400 times the lunar distance and diameter. Therefore, the Moon covers the Sun nearly during a total solar eclipse; this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future because the Moon's distance from Earth is increasing. The Moon was first reached in September 1959 by an unmanned spacecraft; the United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11. These missions returned lunar rocks which have been used to develop a geological understanding of the Moon's origin, internal structure, the Moon's history. Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by unmanned spacecraft.
Both the Moon's natural prominence in the earthly sky and its regular cycle of phases as seen from Earth have provided cultural references and influences for human societies and cultures since time immemorial. Such cultural influences can be found in language, lunar calendar systems and mythology; the usual English proper name for Earth's natural satellite is "the Moon", which in nonscientific texts is not capitalized. The noun moon is derived from Old English mōna, which stems from Proto-Germanic *mēnô, which comes from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s "moon", "month", which comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *meh₁- "to measure", the month being the ancient unit of time measured by the Moon; the name "Luna" is used. In literature science fiction, "Luna" is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of Earth's moon; the modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, derived from the Latin word for the Moon, luna. The adjective selenic is so used to refer to the Moon that this meaning is not recorded in most major dictionaries.
It is derived from the Ancient Greek word for the Moon, σελήνη, from, however derived the prefix "seleno-", as in selenography, the study of the physical features of the Moon, as well as the element name selenium. Both the Greek goddess Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia; the names Luna and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune and selenocentric. The name Diana comes from the Proto-Indo-European *diw-yo, "heavenly", which comes from the PIE root *dyeu- "to shine," which in many derivatives means "sky and god" and is the origin of Latin dies, "day"; the Moon formed 4.51 billion years ago, some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. Several forming mechanisms have been proposed, including the fission of the Moon from Earth's crust through centrifugal force, the gravitational capture of a pre-formed Moon, the co-formation of Earth and the Moon together in the primordial accretion disk; these hypotheses cannot account for the high angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system.
The prevailing hypothesis is that the Earth–Moon system formed after an impact of a Mars-sized body with the proto-Earth. The impact blasted material into Earth's orbit and the material accreted and formed the Moon; the Moon's far side has a crust, 30 mi thicker than that of the near side. This is thought to be; this hypothesis, although not perfect best explains the evidence. Eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists: "You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to your computer, do whatever you have to, but make up your mind. Don't come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moon's birth." At the 1984 conference at Kona, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most consensual theory. Before the conference, there were parti
Future History (Heinlein)
The Future History, by Robert A. Heinlein, describes a projected future of the human race from the middle of the 20th century through the early 23rd century; the term Future History was coined by John W. Campbell, Jr. in the February 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell published an early draft of Heinlein's chart of the series in the March 1941 issue. Heinlein wrote most of the Future History stories early in his career, between 1939 and 1941 and between 1945 and 1950. Most of the Future History stories written prior to 1967 are collected in The Past Through Tomorrow, which contains the final version of the chart; that collection does not include Common Sense. Groff Conklin called Future History "the greatest of all histories of tomorrow", it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, along with the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Lensman series by E. E. Smith, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien, but lost to Asimov's Foundation series.
For the most part, The Past Through Tomorrow defines a core group of stories that are within the Future History series. However, Heinlein scholars agree that some stories not included in the anthology belong to the Future History series, that some that are included are only weakly linked to it. James Gifford adds Time Enough for Love, published after The Past Through Tomorrow, "Let There Be Light", not included in The Past Through Tomorrow because the collection editor disliked it or because Heinlein himself considered it to be inferior. However, he considers Time Enough for Love to be a borderline case, he considers The Number of the Beast, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, To Sail Beyond the Sunset to be too weakly linked to the Future History to be included. Bill Patterson includes To Sail Beyond the Sunset, on the theory that the discrepancies between it and the rest of the Future History are explained by assigning it to the same "bundle of related timelines" in the World as Myth multiverse.
However, he lists a number of stories that he believes were never intended to be part of Future History though they were included in The Past Through Tomorrow: "Life-Line", "The Menace from Earth", "—We Also Walk Dogs", the stories published in the Saturday Evening Post. He agrees with Gifford; the story "—And He Built a Crooked House—" was included only in the pre-war chart and never since. The Heinlein juveniles do not hew to the Future History outline. Gifford states that "Although the twelve juvenile novels are not inconsistent with the Future History, neither do they form a thorough match with that series for adult readers, it is not recognized that they are a reasonably consistent'Future History' of their own... At least one major story specified in the Future History chart, the revolution on Venus, ended up being told in the framework of the juveniles as Between Planets." The novel Variable Star, written by Spider Robinson from Heinlein's detailed outline, incorporates some elements of both the Future History and the universe of the Heinlein juveniles.
The adult short story "The Long Watch", included in Future History story collections, connects to Space Cadet through the character of Ezra Dahlquist, the central character of the first, memorialized in the second. The following is a chronology of the Future History. Years are included to indicate. Stories that were planned but never written are noted. "Life-Line" "Let There Be Light" Word Edgewise"The Roads Must Roll" "Blowups Happen" "The Man Who Sold the Moon" "Delilah and the Space Rigger" "Space Jockey" "Requiem" "The Long Watch" "Gentlemen, Be Seated!" "The Black Pits of Luna" "It's Great to Be Back!" "—We Also Walk Dogs" "Searchlight" "Ordeal in Space" "The Green Hills of Earth"Fire Down Below"Logic of Empire" "The Menace from Earth"The Sound of His Wings Eclipse The Stone Pillow"If This Goes On—" "Coventry" "Misfit" "Universe" Methuselah's Children "Universe" Time Enough for Love To Sail Beyond the Sunset The chart published in the collection Revolt in 2100 includes several unwritten stories, which Heinlein describes in a postscript.
"Fire Down Below," about a revolution in Antarctica, would have been set in the early 21st century. Three more unwritten stories fill in the history from just before "Logic of Empire" in the early 21st century through the beginning of "If This Goes On—". "The Sound of His Wings" covers Nehemiah Scudder's early life as a television evangelist through his rise to power as the First Prophet. "Eclipse" describes independence movements on Venus. "The Stone Pillow" details the rise of the resistance movement from the early days of the theocracy through the beginning of "If This Goes On—". These stories were key points in the Future History, so Heinlein gave a rough description of Nehemiah Scudder
Ceres (dwarf planet)
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter closer to Mars's orbit. With a diameter of 945 km, Ceres is the largest of the minor planets and the only dwarf planet inside Neptune's orbit, it is the 33rd-largest known body in the Solar System. Ceres comprises rock and ice, contains one-third of the mass of the entire asteroid belt. Ceres is the only object in the asteroid belt known to be rounded by its own gravity, although detailed analysis was required to exclude Vesta. From Earth, the apparent magnitude of Ceres ranges from 6.7 to 9.3, peaking once at opposition every 15 to 16 months, its synodic period. Thus at its brightest, it is too dim to be seen by the naked eye, except under dark skies. Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered, it was considered a planet, but was reclassified as an asteroid in the 1850s after many other objects in similar orbits were discovered. Ceres appears to be differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle, may have a remnant internal ocean of liquid water under the layer of ice.
The surface is various hydrated minerals such as carbonates and clay. In January 2014, emissions of water vapor were detected from several regions of Ceres; this was unexpected because large bodies in the asteroid belt do not emit vapor, a hallmark of comets. The robotic NASA spacecraft Dawn entered orbit around Ceres on 6 March 2015. Pictures with a resolution unattained were taken during imaging sessions starting in January 2015 as Dawn approached Ceres, showing a cratered surface. Two distinct bright spots inside a crater were seen in a 19 February 2015 image, leading to speculation about a possible cryovolcanic origin or outgassing. On 3 March 2015, a NASA spokesperson said the spots are consistent with reflective materials containing ice or salts, but that cryovolcanism is unlikely. However, on 2 September 2016, scientists from the Dawn team claimed in a Science paper that a massive cryovolcano called Ahuna Mons is the strongest evidence yet for the existence of these mysterious formations.
On 11 May 2015, NASA released a higher-resolution image showing that, instead of one or two spots, there are several. On 9 December 2015, NASA scientists reported that the bright spots on Ceres may be related to a type of salt a form of brine containing magnesium sulfate hexahydrite. In June 2016, near-infrared spectra of these bright areas were found to be consistent with a large amount of sodium carbonate, implying that recent geologic activity was involved in the creation of the bright spots. In July 2018, NASA released a comparison of physical features found on Ceres with similar ones present on Earth. From June to October, 2018, Dawn orbited Ceres from as close as 35 km and as far away as 4,000 km; the Dawn mission ended on 1 November 2018. In October 2015, NASA released a true-color portrait of Ceres made by Dawn. In February 2017, organics were detected on Ceres in Ernutet crater. Johann Elert Bode, in 1772, first suggested that an undiscovered planet could exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Kepler had noticed the gap between Mars and Jupiter in 1596. Bode based his idea on the Titius–Bode law, a now-discredited hypothesis, first proposed in 1766. Bode observed that there was a regular pattern in the semi-major axes of the orbits of known planets, that the pattern was marred only by the large gap between Mars and Jupiter; the pattern predicted that the missing planet ought to have an orbit with a semi-major axis near 2.8 astronomical units. William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781 near the predicted distance for the next body beyond Saturn increased faith in the law of Titius and Bode, in 1800, a group headed by Franz Xaver von Zach, editor of the Monatliche Correspondenz, sent requests to twenty-four experienced astronomers, asking that they combine their efforts and begin a methodical search for the expected planet. Although they did not discover Ceres, they found several large asteroids. One of the astronomers selected for the search was Giuseppe Piazzi, a Catholic priest at the Academy of Palermo, Sicily.
Before receiving his invitation to join the group, Piazzi discovered Ceres on 1 January 1801. He was searching for "the 87th of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la Caille", but found that "it was preceded by another". Instead of a star, Piazzi had found a moving star-like object. Piazzi observed Ceres a total of 24 times, the final time on 11 February 1801, when illness interrupted his observations, he announced his discovery on 24 January 1801 in letters to only two fellow astronomers, his compatriot Barnaba Oriani of Milan and Johann Elert Bode of Berlin. He reported it as a comet but "since its movement is so slow and rather uniform, it has occurred to me several times that it might be something better than a comet". In April, Piazzi sent his complete observations to Oriani, Jérôme Lalande in Paris; the information was published in the September 1801 issue of the Monatliche Correspondenz. By this time, the apparent position of Ceres had changed, was too close to the Sun's glare for other astronomers to confirm Piazzi's observations.
Toward the end of the year, Ceres should have been vis
