A stunning new image from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows a cluster of bright spots on Ceres’ surface in unprecedented detail.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this image of Ceres and its mysterious bright spots from a distance of 915 miles (1,470 km). Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.
The intriguing bright spots lie in Occator crater. Named for the Roman god of the harrow and a helper to Ceres, the crater has a diameter of 60 miles (90 km) and a depth of two miles (4 km).
The new up-close view of the crater reveals better-defined shapes of the brightest, central spot and features on the crater floor.
Members of the Dawn science team note the rim of the crater is almost vertical in some places, where it rises steeply for one mile (2 km).
“Dawn has transformed what was so recently a few bright dots into a complex and beautiful, gleaming landscape. Soon, the scientific analysis will reveal the geological and chemical nature of this mysterious and mesmerizing extraterrestrial scenery,” said Dr Marc Rayman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
This is a color-coded topographic map of Occator crater; elevations span a range of about 4 miles (6 km) from the lowest places in the crater to the highest terrains surrounding it; blue is the lowest elevation, and brown is the highest. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI.
The spacecraft is around 915 miles (1,470 km) from Ceres. It is also 2.24 astronomical units (208.2 million miles) from our planet and 2.96 astronomical units (275 million miles) from the Sun. Radio signals, traveling at the universal limit of the speed of light, take more than half a hour to make the round trip.
Views from Dawn’s current orbit have three times better resolution than the images the probe delivered from its previous orbit in June, and nearly ten times better than in the spacecraft’s first orbit in April and May.
Dawn has already completed two 11-day cycles of mapping the surface of the dwarf planet from its current altitude, and began the third today.
It will map all of Ceres six times over the next two months. Each cycle consists of 14 orbits. By imaging the planet at a slightly different angle in each mapping cycle, mission scientists will be able to assemble stereo views and construct 3D maps.
Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct Solar System targets. It orbited protoplanet Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.
