NASA's Dawn spacecraft releases new images of dwarf planet Ceres

This processed image, taken Jan. 13, 2015, shows the dwarf planet Ceres

as seen from the Dawn spacecraft. The image hints at craters on the

surface of Ceres. Dawn’s framing camera took this image at 238,000 miles

from Ceres. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

Excerpt from foxnews.com

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is approaching the dwarf planet Ceres and new

images released Monday show a closer view of the planet’s surface.

“We know so much about the solar system and yet so little about dwarf

planet Ceres. Now, Dawn is ready to change that,” said Marc Rayman,

Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director, according to a news release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The NASA spacecraft is scheduled to conduct a 16-month study of Ceres

and will send increasingly better and better images as it gets closer

to the planet. It is the first time a spacecraft has ever visited a

dwarf planet.

“Already, the [latest] images hint at first surface structures such

as craters,” said Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing

camera team at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,

Gottingen, Germany.

The images, taken by Dawn 238,000 miles from Ceres on January 13, are

at about 80 percent the resolution of Hubble Space Telescope images

taken in 2003 and 2004. The next set of images to be released by Dawn –

at the end of January – will be the clearest yet, NASA says.

Ceres, which lies between Mars and Jupiter, has an average diameter

of 590 miles and is the largest body in the main asteroid belt. It is

believed to contain a large amount of ice and scientists say the surface

of the planet could be concealing an ocean.

“The team is very excited to examine the surface of Ceres in

never-before-seen detail,” said Chris Russell, principal investigator

for the Dawn mission. “We look forward to the surprises this mysterious

world may bring.”

The Dawn spacecraft has already delivered more than 30,000 images of

Vesta – the second largest body in the main asteroid belt – during an

orbit in 2011 and 2012.

Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/teBDN76ZmIc/nasas-dawn-spacecraft-releases-new.html

[ Add Comment ]

NASA's Dawn spacecraft releases new images of dwarf planet Ceres