Dawn

Beautiful New Topographical Map Of Ceres Shows a Complex, Icy World 

NASA has just released a stunning new topographic map of Ceres, the other dwarf planet astronomers are getting to study up close and personal this summer. Unlike Pluto’s freakishly smooth and youthful surface, Ceres’s exterior is riddled with craters, creating a battered old landscape of peaks and valleys. The topo maps shown here, with low…

Are the White Spots on Ceres Producing Afternoon Haze?

The mysterious white spots on Ceres have stepped up their game: from certain angles at certain times of day, they apparently produce a haze that partially covers their crater. If the observations are confirmed, it suggests the odd markings are ice directly sublimating into crater-filling haze. The bright white spots speckle Ceres, but the haze…

Ceres’ Bright Spots Continue to Mystify Astronomers

As NASA’s Dawn mission continues to circle dwarf planet Ceres, we’re getting better and more detailed images of the planet’s mysterious bright spots. And yet, science is no closer to understanding what’s making this far-off planet glow. The latest images were taken by Dawn in its second mapping orbit, some 2,700 miles above the surface.…

Ride Along With Dawn Spacecraft As It Swoops Around Dwarf Planet Ceres

A breathtaking new composite video tracks the journey of NASA’s Dawn spacecraft as it settles into an orbit some 2,730 miles (4,400 km) above the surface of Ceres. Dawn entered into its new orbit on June 3. The spacecraft will stay there for about a month as it continues to conduct detailed observations of the…

Our Closest View Yet Of Ceres’ Pockmarked Surface

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is getting progressively closer to Ceres. And we’re getting some amazing views — this remarkably detailed shot shows the dwarf planet’s cratered surface from a distance of only 3,200 miles (5,100 km). This shot, taken by Dawn’s OpNav9 camera on May 23, shows some previously unseen features, including secondary craters formed by…

This Is Ceres’ North Pole

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spent a month in the shadow of Ceres. But now, the highest resolution images of the dwarf planet to date reveal its north pole. The images, acquired by NASA on April 10th, were captured from a distance of 21,000 miles above the surface of the planet. While future images will show…

The Surface Of Ceres Explodes Into View With This First Color Map

After months of anticipation, NASA scientists have finally produced a detailed color map of Ceres. Our first detailed look at the dwarf planet’s pitted surface reveals it is a geologically complex place. This image was constructed from images pulled in by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft as it was still approaching Ceres and prior to it settling…

Explore Vesta With A New App For Citizen Scientists

Between July 2011 and September 2012, the Dawn spacecraft orbited Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt. Now you can explore all the data it collected in a tidy app called Trek that includes interactive maps, 3D-printable topography maps, and a video-game style interface to “fly” over the terrain. Top image: You want…

Now You Can Fly Around Asteroid Vesta and Explore Every Crevice 

NASA launched Dawn spacecraft in 2007 to study two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. And now here is an amazing interactive tool, very similar to Google Earth, called Vesta Trek, which let you explore Vesta—one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System—on your own. Dawn studied Vesta…

Where Are All The Close-Up Photos Of Ceres?

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft arrived in orbit around Ceres on March 6th – so why haven’t we seen any close-up photos of the dwarf planet? Above: Ceres, as photographed by Dawn on March 1 from a distance of 30,000 miles (About 48,000 km) | Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA If you’re the kind of person who puts stock…

NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Is Finally In Orbit Around Ceres

At 4:39 (PST) this morning, after over seven years and three billion miles of travel, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was pulled into Ceres’ orbit, becoming the first ever mission to orbit around a dwarf planet. An hour after the spacecraft slipped into the planet’s orbit from 35,000 miles away, NASA announced that they had received a…

A Possible Explanation For The Mysterious Bright Spots On Ceres

The discovery of a bright spot on Ceres has given rise to lots of speculation. And now we’ve learned something new: it has a friend. The second spot is not quite as bright, but still weirdly reflective compared to the rest of the dwarf planet. The geological mystery keeps getting more interesting! Top image: From…

The Complete History Of Ceres, The Planet (?) Between Mars And Jupiter

Over the last couple of weeks, the Dawn Spacecraft has been beaming back spectacular pictures of Ceres – a world, discovered more than a century before Pluto, about which we know very little. This is the story of its discovery, and humanity’s impending visit to one of the last unexplored planetary bodies in the solar…

The Long, Spiraling Path NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Will Take to Ceres

Over the next few months, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will be slowly spiraling down toward Ceres, a dwarf planet out in the asteroid belt. Ceres’ gravity and Dawn’s ion drive will work together to pull the spacecraft into a tighter and tighter orbit, which is rather mesmerizing traced out in full like this. Dawn is already…

Just What Are Those White Spots On Ceres?

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is edging closer and closer to the dwarf planet Ceres, producing the best ever photograph ever taken every time it sends data home. But the more we see, the more the mystery deepens. Just what are those freaking white spots?! I’m serious: we don’t know what they are. We saw the original…

This Is The Greatest View Of Dwarf Planet Ceres We Have Ever Seen

The Dawn spacecraft has done it: it is now taking the highest-resolution images of the dwarf planet Ceres that have ever been seen. Not only is this new image better than the historic Hubble Space Telescope image, but every new release will be better than the one before until it arrives in orbit this March.…

Could This Be The Answer To Ceres’s Mysterious White Spot?

As Dawn slowly approaches Ceres, this dwarf planet’s inexplicable white spot is increasingly coming into focus. Thanks to xkcd’s Randall Munroe, we may finally have the answer. https://gizmodo.com/what-do-you-see-in-the-latest-images-of-ceres-1680561534 Seriously, though — what the hell is that thing? Here’s the latest clip from Dawn, in which you can see the spot at top left of Ceres.…

For anyone who’s been wondering what that odd white spot on the surface of Ceres is, Randall Munroe thinks he has the answer. [XKCD]

This Is the Dwarf Planet Ceres Spinning on Its Axis

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is currently heading towards the largest celestial body in the Asteroid Belt, known as Ceres. Due to arrive in March, it’s already close enough to image the rocky dwarf planet rotating on its axis. https://gizmodo.com/the-dawn-spacecraft-is-closing-in-on-dwarf-planet-ceres-1667279924 This animation is made up of a series of images of Ceres, recorded by Dawn over the…

What Do You See In The Latest Images Of Ceres?

As spacecraft Dawn edges closer to the dwarf planet Ceres, one thing is clear: this is no rock and ice ducky like comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Aside from that, it’s like a Rorschach inkblot test of fuzzy pixels as we try to guess what awaits our robotic explorer on this alien world. Top image: Raw image of…