NASA Dawn Spacecraft Nears Ceres Orbital Insertion

NASA has announced that the Dawn spacecraft is nearing orbital insertion around the dwarf planet Ceres. The Dawn mission will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters orbit around Ceres on March 6. As the spacecraft gets ready to enter orbit and gets closer to the surface of Ceres, the probe is sending back detailed images.

The images have shown scientists that Ceres has numerous craters and bright spots that scientists believe offers hints at how Ceres was formed and whether its surface is changing. Ceres was the first object discovered in the asteroid belt in our solar system.

The final approach phase for Dawn began in December and so far, there have been several optical navigation images taken by the spacecraft. Dawn has been able to observe the full nine-hour rotation of Ceres and since January 25. The images that Dawn is returning are the highest resolution images of Ceres ever taken.

Ceres was discovered in 1801 by a Sicilian named Father Giuseppe Piazzi and was classified as a dwarf planet in 2006 along with Pluto and Eris. The Dawn mission launched in 2007 and previously explored the asteroid Vesta for 14 months 2011 and 2012. It's hard to gauge how large Ceres is, NASA says that the dwarf planet has a surface that covers about 38% of the US at 326 miles in average diameter.

SOURCE: JPL