LONDON: NASA showed the world the most detailed images thus far of the dwarf planet Ceres. The photos were captured by the Dawn mission spacecraft from 1470 kilometers away, yet they show impressive detail of the planet’s surface. The pictures were received on August 21. Ceres is a dwarf planet located between Jupiter and Mars.
The photos depict the geography of the planet in a fairly detailed manner. They clearly show craters, mountains and cracks on the surface of the dwarf planet. Marc Rayman, chief engineer and mission director of Dawn was very satisfied with the images and the mission thus far. He stated, “Dawn is performing flawlessly in the new orbit as it conducts its ambitious exploration. The spacecraft’s view is now three times as sharp as in its previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing dwarf planet.”
One of the photos shows what is calculated to be a six kilometer (four mile) cone shaped mountain protruding from the relatively flat service of the planet.
It will take quite some time for Dawn to capture the entire surface of Ceres. Every image taken only represents one percent of the planet’s surface. In addition, due to Dawn’s distance from Earth, it takes approximately 11 days for the images to be captured and broadcast back to NASA.
With the enhanced framing camera, scientists will be able to utilize three-dimensional modeling to thoroughly evaluate the surface of Ceres.
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