[meteorite-list] Dawn Captures Sharper Images of Ceres

From: Lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu <Lebofsky_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 15:36:35 -0700
Message-ID: <64040af09db4191cd5ae936b69d6cbd0.squirrel_at_webmail.lpl.arizona.edu>

Graham:

I am amazed by how cratered ("old") the surface looks. I am still
personally very interested in how bright the whitish areas actually are.
Icy?

Larry


> Wonderful!...now seeing good detail...can't wait for a closer look and
> the data analysis.
>
> Graham
>
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 4:44 PM, Ron Baalke via Meteorite-list
> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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
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Received on Tue 17 Feb 2015 05:36:35 PM PST