Kembalinya Kaisar China Ke Indonesia

Tampilannya mirip banget sama Harley-Davidson. Bahkan, konsep dapur pacunya juga mirip dengan motor asal Amrik itu. Demikian sekilas sosok motor Kaiser Ruby 250 asal China yang sempat meramaikan pasar sepeda motor Indonesia, kemudian hilang. Kini, mereka hadir kembali dengan moto "The Legend Reborn".

Kata "legenda" yang disematkan pada Ruby bisa dilihat dari dua sisi. Pertama, boleh jadi inilah produk yang dibanggakan Negeri Tirai Bambu untuk membendung pasar domestik dari serbuan produk luar. Kedua, kemiripannya dengan H-D, tak cuma dari sisi bentuk, seperti desain chopper yang khas Amrik. Lihat bentuk mesin dengan konfigurasi V berpendingin udara dan dua silinder sama seperti H-D.

Why Ceres and Vesta?

Dawn focuses on two of the first bodies formed in the solar system, the surviving protoplanets, Ceres and Vesta. Radioisotope chronology from the howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) meteorites believed to be from Vesta suggests it accreted in only 5-15 million years.

Eucrite meteorite possibly from Vesta Photo Credit: R. Kempton (New England Meteoritical Services)

Similar evidence indicates that Mars continued to accrete for close to 30 million and Earth for 50 million years. The early cessation of accretion in the asteroid belt was presumably due to the formation of Jupiter whose gravitational forcing countered the accretionary process, and today is causing the disruption of the bodies that did accrete. Although we do not have similar meteorite evidence directly linked to Ceres, it too is expected to have formed in the first approximately 10 million years. In addition the asteroid belt may have been scoured by comets, scattered by the formation of the remaining gas giants. Today only some of the largest asteroids remain relatively undisrupted. The most massive of these are Ceres and Vesta, two most complementary minor planets. The former has a very primitive surface, water-bearing minerals, and possibly a very weak atmosphere and frost. The latter is a dry, differentiated body whose surface has been resurfaced by basaltic lava flows possibly possessing an early magma ocean like the Moon. Most importantly Vesta has experienced significant excavating events, most notably indicated by the huge crater near its southern pole. Cosmic ray exposure dating of HEDs indicates that impacts have released meteoritic material at least five times in the last 50 million years. Meteorites from these impacts have been used to piece together a most probable scenario for Vesta's thermal evolution.