Recently, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has captured the highest
quality pictures ever seen of the dwarf planet know as Ceres. On January 25, NASA received these images
from the spacecraft, which took them from 147,000 miles away. The images were of such high resolution due
to the fact that the spacecraft has traveled through the solar system to
Ceres. However, this is just the
start. In the beginning of March, Dawn
will enter into orbit around Ceres, enabling NASA to visualize the dwarf
planet’s composition. "We are already seeing areas and
details on Ceres popping out that had not been seen before. For instance, there
are several dark features in the southern hemisphere that might be craters
within a region that is darker overall," said Carol Raymond from JPL.
"Data from this mission will revolutionize our understanding of this
unique body. Ceres is showing us tantalizing features that are whetting our
appetite for the detailed exploration to come." Although we know a miniscule amount of
information about our solar system, "With the help of Dawn and other
missions, we are continually adding to our understanding of how the solar
system began and how the planets were formed," said Chris Russell from the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Citation: http://www.astronomy.com/news/2015/01/dawn-spacecraft-captures-best-ever-view-of-dwarf-planet
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