Space Sci Rev (2011) 163:95–116 DOI 10.1007/s11214-010-9677-4 The Surface Composition of Ceres Andrew S. Rivkin · Jian-Yang Li · Ralph E. Milliken · Lucy F. Lim · Amy J. Lovell · Britney E. Schmidt · Lucy A. McFadden · Barbara A. Cohen Received: 3 December 2009 / Accepted: 14 July 2010 / Published online: 9 September 2010 © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Our understanding of the composition of Ceres is driven by remote sensing of its surface. We review spectral observations of Ceres over wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the radio, as well as non-spectral data such as thermal inertia, photometric properties, radar experiments, and surface variability. We also discuss the closest likely meteorite analogs to Ceres and consider the likelihood that material from Ceres could be delivered to Earth. Keywords Asteroids · Dwarf planets · Solar system · Spectroscopy · Dawn mission · Composition 1 Introduction At the time of this writing we are less than five years from Dawn’s rendezvous with Ceres. Our understanding of this object, the closest of the IAU-defined dwarf planets to the Sun A.S. Rivkin ( ) Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA e-mail: andrew.rivkin@jhuapl.edu J.-Y. Li · L.A. McFadden University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA R.E. Milliken University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA L.F. Lim NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA A.J. Lovell Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, GA, USA B.E. Schmidt University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA B.A. Cohen NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, USA