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This Cerealia Facula mosaic inside the Occer crater of the dwarf planet Ceres is based on images obtained by the Dawn spacecraft from NASA in its second extended mission.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA
You may have seen the odd shiny spots speckling the dwarf planet Ceres – but not like
The Ceres-orbiting Dawn spacecraft NASA has captured breathtaking new photos of several of the brilliant white lines, formally known as facula, which lie at the bottom of the 92-kilometer dwarf planet. Crater of Occateur.
Dawn broke images of an altitude of about 21 miles (34 km) – just three times as high as a commercial airliner flies, NASA officials said. [In Pictures: The Changing Bright Spots of Dwarf Planet Ceres]
"The new images of the Occator Crater and surroundings have exceeded expectations, revealing beautiful extraterrestrial landscapes," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's principal investigator, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the NASA in Pasadena, California. statement yesterday (16 July).
The Dawn mission, worth $ 467 million, launched in September 2007 with a bold goal: orbiter and study the two largest bodies of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. Both objects are considered as remnants of the planet formation period of the solar system (hence the name of the mission).
Dawn reached Vesta in July 2011 and observed the object closely for more than a year, before leaving for Ceres in September 2012.
Dawn discovered the bright spots of the Crater. Occateur during his approach to Ceres early 2015, and later found a number of other facula badociated with the crater around the dwarf planet. The observations of the probe revealed that the bright dots are salt deposits, composed mainly of sodium carbonate and ammonium chloride.
Scientists believe that this material was abandoned when brackish water evaporated into space. This close-up photo of the Vinalia Faculae in the Occator crater of Ceres was captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft during its second extended mission, from an altitude as low as 21 miles (34 kilometers) . “/>
This close-up photo of the Vinalia Faculae in Ceres' Occer crater was captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on its second extended mission at an altitude as low as 34 kilometers. 19659014] Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA
Members of the Dawn team use probe observations to address this issue and discuss the problem. others on the Ceres 590 miles (950 km). Some of the most intriguing and striking data comes from the last phase of the Dawn mission, during which the spacecraft flew over Ceres at an altitude of only 21 miles
Dawn climbed that orbit early in the month. and will stay there until the end of his operational life, which should arrive in a few months. The spacecraft is almost hydrazine, the fuel that powers small propellers controlling Dawn's direction. When hydrazine is gone, Dawn will be unable to point her scientific instruments at Ceres or her communication devices on Earth.
The Dawn team presents the results of the last (low-orbit) mission phase this week to the Committee. on the conference on space research in Pasadena
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