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NASA’s recent spacecraft will enter a dwarf planet’s orbit on March 6th. The spacecraft has been getting closer to Ceres, a small planet situated in the principle belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA’s Dawn sends out extraordinary images of Ceres.
Astonishing images of Ceres planet have been taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. There is little information regarding this specific planet. The dwarf planet named Ceres has a 950 km diameter. Scientists believe its main structure is made out of ice the size of an ocean. Because this is the only information available about this dwarf planet, scientists have designed a spacecraft especially for investigating this planet.
NASA’s Dawn’s is mainly conducted by Marc Rayman, who is the chief engineer and mission director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He feels confident that there is plenty more information about to be discovered about Ceres. He says that researchers have plenty of knowledge about the solar system, yet nothing whatsoever about the dwarf planet.
New images have been taken since December’s last update. These pictures show the planet at 27 pixels across. This is a much greater calibration than in the previous photos back in 2004. Those pictures were taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
These new pictures were taken on January 13th with more than 80 percent better resolution than Hubble Telescope. However, this is only the beginning. More and considerably better captures will be taken of the dwarf planet in these next few weeks.
This mission is scheduled to last 16 months as the spacecraft will spin closer to Ceres’ surface. The leading investigator suggested that these recent images show structures like craters as part of Ceres’ surface. The image investigation was taken place at Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research located in Gottingen, Germany.
The moment when Dawn will first arrive at Ceres a page of history will be written. It will be the first visit ever made to a dwarf planet. Moreover, NASA’s Dawn has also captured pictures of Vesta, another planet situated in the asteroid belt.
Since its launching, the spacecraft has captured more than 30,000 images of Ceres and Vesta as well. It has been determined that the latter one is the second most colossal mass in that belt.
This mission has been made possible due to ion propulsion. Being able to orbit two undiscovered, unexplored planets simultaneously is a first in NASA’s history. This unique moment will be celebrated at an event organized by JPL’s Institute of Technology.
Image Source: penningtonplanetarium
