Among the most striking features on the surface of Ceres are the bright spots in the center of Occator crater which stood out already as NASA’s space probe Dawn approached the dwarf planet. Scientists under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) have now for the first time determined the age of this bright material, which consists mainly of deposits of special mineral salts. With about four million years only, these deposits are about 30 million years younger than the crater itself. This, as well as the distribution and nature of the bright material within the crater, suggests that Occator crater has been the scene of eruptive outbursts of subsurface brine over a long period and until almost recently. Ceres is thus the body closest to the Sun that shows cryovolcanic activity.