[meteorite-list] Dawn Sends Sharper Scenes from Ceres

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4697

Dawn Sends Sharper Scenes from Ceres
Jet Propulsin Laboratory
August 25, 2015

The closest-yet views of Ceres, delivered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, show 
the small world's features in unprecedented detail, including Ceres' tall, 
conical mountain; crater formation features and narrow, braided fractures.

"Dawn is performing flawlessly in this new orbit as it conducts its ambitious 
exploration. The spacecraft's view is now three times as sharp as in its 
previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing 
dwarf planet," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, 
based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

At its current orbital altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), Dawn 
takes 11 days to capture and return images of Ceres' whole surface. Each 
11-day cycle consists of 14 orbits. Over the next two months, the spacecraft 
will map the entirety of Ceres six times.

The spacecraft is using its framing camera to extensively map the surface, 
enabling 3-D modeling. Every image from this orbit has a resolution of 
450 feet (140 meters) per pixel, and covers less than 1 percent of the 
surface of Ceres.

At the same time, Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer is 
collecting data that will give scientists a better understanding of the 
minerals found on Ceres' surface.

Engineers and scientists will also refine their measurements of Ceres' 
gravity field, which will help mission planners in designing Dawn's next 
orbit -- its lowest -- as well as the journey to get there. In late October, 
Dawn will begin spiraling toward this final orbit, which will be at an 
altitude of 230 miles (375 kilometers).

Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit 
two distinct solar system targets. It orbited protoplanet Vesta for 14 
months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate 
in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, 
managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 
UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., 
in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace 
Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space 
Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international 
partners on the mission team. For a complete list of mission participants, 
visit:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission

More information about Dawn is available at the following sites:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/dawn


Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
818-354-6425
elizabeth.landau at jpl.nasa.gov 

2015-277