[meteorite-list] Dawn Captures Sharper Images of Ceres

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 08:44:27 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201502171644.t1HGiRUL002341_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4485

Dawn Captures Sharper Images of Ceres
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 17, 2015

Craters and mysterious bright spots are beginning to pop out in the
latest images of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. These images, taken
Feb. 12 at a distance of 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) from the dwarf
planet, pose intriguing questions for the science team to explore as the
spacecraft nears its destination.

The image is available at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA19056

"As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her
planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the
wiser," said Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission,
based at UCLA. "We expected to be surprised; we did not expect to be
this puzzled."

Dawn will be gently captured into orbit around Ceres on March 6. As the
spacecraft delivers better images and other data, the science team will
be investigating the nature and composition of the dwarf planet,
including the nature of the craters and bright spots that are coming
into focus. The latest images, which have a resolution of 4.9 miles (7.8
kilometers) per pixel, represent the sharpest views of Ceres to date.

The spacecraft explored the giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months during
2011 and 2012. Scientists gained numerous insights about the geological
history of this body and saw its cratered surface in fine detail. By
comparing Vesta and Ceres, they will develop a better understanding of
the formation of the solar system.

Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory 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., of Dulles,
Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. JPL is managed for NASA by
the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The framing cameras
were provided by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,
Gottingen, Germany, with significant contributions by the German
Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in
coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network
Engineering, Braunschweig. The visible and infrared mapping spectrometer
was provided by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National
Institute for Astrophysics, built by Selex ES, and is managed and
operated by the Italian Institute for Space Astrophysics and
Planetology, Rome. The gamma ray and neutron detector was built by Los
Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and is operated by the Planetary
Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona.

For more information about Dawn, visit:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov

Media Contact

Elizabeth Landau
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6425
Elizabeth.Landau at jpl.nasa.gov

2015-061
Received on Tue 17 Feb 2015 11:44:27 AM PST