Doyle Rice

USA TODAY

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back more photos of the mysterious lights on Ceres, the dwarf planet.

Ceres is the biggest object in the asteroid belt, a ring of rocky objects between Mars and Jupiter. Dawn has been orbiting around the remote world since March 2015.

The brightest area on Ceres is in the Occator Crater, which measures 57 miles across and 2.5 miles deep.

"Before Dawn began its intensive observations of Ceres last year, Occator Crater looked to be one large bright area," said Ralf Jaumann, planetary scientist and Dawn co-investigator at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Berlin.

"Now, with the latest close views, we can see complex features that provide new mysteries to investigate," he added.

Mysterious white spot on dwarf planet explained

Photos of other craters across Ceres, many with bright areas of their own, were also released by NASA

A study last year theorized that the bright area was a type of salt, left behind by disappearing water or ice.

Contributing: Traci Watson, USA TODAY