{"id":19519,"date":"2015-12-23T01:11:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T17:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ceres-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-nasas-dawn-orbiter-delivers-closest-close-ups-of-dwarf-planet\/"},"modified":"2015-12-23T01:11:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T17:11:45","slug":"ceres-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-nasas-dawn-orbiter-delivers-closest-close-ups-of-dwarf-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ceres-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-nasas-dawn-orbiter-delivers-closest-close-ups-of-dwarf-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceres as you\u2019ve never seen it before: NASA\u2019s Dawn orbiter delivers closest close-ups of dwarf planet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gerber
This Dec. 10 image of Ceres shows the area around a crater chain called Gerber Catena,. NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft was flying about 240 miles above Ceres when the picture was taken. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this month we started seeing some of the closest views yet of Pluto, and now it\u2019s time for close-ups from a closer dwarf planet: Ceres.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Dawn orbiter has begun delivering pictures of the solar system\u2019s biggest asteroid and smallest known dwarf planet as seen from its closest vantage point, just 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface. That\u2019s roughly how high the International Space Station flies above Earth.<\/p>\n

One of the more intriguing views released today shows the area around a crater chain called Gerber Catena. Get out your red-blue glasses, and you can easily spot a trough running through a 3-D view of the terrain.<\/p>\n

\"3-D
Got 3-D glasses? Here\u2019s a red-blue version of the Dawn imagery of Gerber Catena (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of Ceres\u2019 troughs and grooves are thought to have been formed by impacts, but some appear to be due to internal stresses that ruptured the mini-world\u2019s crust.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy they are so prominent is not yet understood, but they are probably related to the complex crustal structure of Ceres,\u201d Paul Schenk, a Dawn science team member from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, said in today\u2019s image advisory from NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

These pictures were taken to test Dawn\u2019s backup framing camera. The spacecraft\u2019s instruments are now getting a high-resolution look at all of Ceres\u2019 mysteries \u2013 including the weird bright spots that have shown up so prominently at higher altitudes.<\/p>\n

\"Ceres'
This part of Ceres, near the south pole, has such long shadows because of the sun\u2019s slanting perspective. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This month, scientists reported that the spots are probably salt deposits, left behind by the sublimation of salty ice exposed by past impacts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we take the highest-resolution data ever from Ceres, we will continue to examine our hypotheses and uncover even more surprises about this mysterious world,\u201d said UCLA astronomer Chris Russell, the Dawn mission\u2019s principal investigator.<\/p>\n

Dawn\u2019s primary science mission is due to last until at least next June. Even after the mission is over, NASA expects the car-sized spacecraft to remain in its current orbit indefinitely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Dec. 10 image of Ceres shows the area around a crater chain called Gerber Catena,. NASA\u2019s Dawn spacecraft was flying about 240 miles above Ceres when the picture was taken. (Credit: NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ UCLA \/ MPS \/ DLR \/ IDA). Earlier this month we started seeing some of the closest views yet of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2838,5133,2840,190],"class_list":["post-19519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ceres","tag-dawn-probe","tag-dwarf-planets","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}