We just had our closest ever look at dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt, & we're about to get a lot closer.
The pair of images, recently captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, are something pretty amazing, they're the best photos we've ever taken of the dwarf planet Ceres, in the asteroid belt.
Dawn was launched in 2007 in order to visit Vesta (a large asteroid), then Ceres. It orbited Vesta in 2011, and after a journey of more than three billion miles, in a few weeks, it's scheduled to reach Ceres.
Vesta and Ceres are the two most massive objects in the asteroid belt — the latter is about 38 percent of the surface area of the continental US. Dawn was designed to explore them for the first time.
Vesta is heavily cratered, and rocky, while Ceres is much smoother, and icy. Both of them, however, are rocky bodies that resemble the ones that coalesced to form Earth and the other terrestrial planets in the early days of the solar system — so by studying them, scientists hope, we can learn more about the formation of these planets billions of years ago.
In 2011, Dawn entered Vesta's orbit and stayed there for 14 months. During that time, it took unprecedentedly detailed photos of the asteroid, spotting surface features that could be evidence of liquid water.
The probe also collected geologic data that allowed scientists to map its surface. These observations led scientists to infer that Vesta is different than any other known asteroid: it has differentiated geologic layers, including an iron core. It's believed that in the early days of the Solar System, all other asteroids like this ended up crashing into each other and coalescing to form the inner planets, but somehow, Vesta did not.
Dawn left Vesta's orbit in 2012, and began heading towards Ceres. If the mission is successful, it will be the first to ever orbit two different extraterrestrial objects, which it achieved by using an ion thruster system — an advanced form of propulsion that uses charged particles, rather than conventional propellant, allowing it to change trajectory while consuming much less fuel.
Dawn is now approaching Ceres — it was about 52,000 miles away as of February 12 — and it's projected to begin permanently orbiting it on March 6.
Meanwhile, the New Horizons space probe — which is approaching the most Pluto — is now "encounter phase" of its mission, and it's scheduled to become the first spacecraft to flyby Pluto in July.
Below, Ceres, Vesta, & Comparison:
Topic: Closest look at Ceres (Read 1688 times)
