The mission Dawn was positioned on June 6 in its new orbit, so it passed from Ceres from a height of 385 kilometers to just 35 kilometers on its surface. Since he's turned to this altitude of the dwarf planet, he has been able to send thousands of images and to attract attention, especially those from the crater of the Occator

Low Ceres orbits revealed new details on the surface of the dwarf planet related to the bright materials seen in the crater and the Vinalia Faculae region. The Visible and Infrared Light Mapping Spectrometer, one of NASA's mission tools had previously observed brilliant salt deposits (Sodium carbonate) found Earth in the Deposits evaporites, a type of sedimentary rocks. And what does it mean? If we look at our planet, this type of salt crystallizes in the waters where there is a large amount of this compound and is then used to extract the common salt.

Dawn Lack of Fuel

The Dawn Dawn probe is about to run out of fuel two years after the end proposed by NASA for the mission. This excess fuel has given researchers the opportunity to get closer to the dwarf planet and see how its surface is. The probe was able to make these images, which will be studied now to see what is the origin of the largest deposits of carbonates observed up to now outside the Earth and perhaps Mars.

But, also, how this material was exposed : shallow surface waters or brines (liquid water enriched with salts) that fractured the surface and reassembled? Researchers still have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks before Dawn goes out and stops sending photographs

"Acquiring these spectacular images was the only way to go. one of the biggest challenges of the extraordinary extraterrestrial expedition.] Dawn and the results are better than we expected, "said the chief engineer and director of this mission, Marc Rayman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. ] There is still more to know about the composition of Ceres and make new measurements of the gravity of the dwarf planet

In addition, low-level observations obtained with other instruments of the mission, a detector neutron and gamma ray spectrometer mapping, will reveal the composition of Ceres to more precisely. In this way, you can have more information about the origin of the materials found on its surface. On the other hand, new gravity measurements will be made, which will probably give more details about the basement.

The first results of Ceres "obtained by Dawn showed us a unique and blinding light point " [en référence] at the famous crater Occator ] said Carol Raymond of JPL, principal investigator of this NASA mission. "Discovering the nature and history of this fascinating dwarf planet during Dawn's long stay in Ceres has been fascinating, and it is particularly fitting that the last act of the mission provide new data sets to test these theories. . " 19659012] You can comment this article and others in our community

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