WASHINGTON: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has delivered the closest-yet views of the dwarf planet called Ceres that show the small world’s features in unprecedented detail.
The new images show Ceres’ tall, conical mountain, crater formation features and narrow, braided fractures.
“Dawn’s view is now three times as sharp as in its previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing dwarf planet,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Engineers and scientists will now refine their measurements of Ceres’ gravity field which will help mission planners in designing Dawn’s next orbit — its lowest — as well as the journey to get there.
