This new view of Ceres’ surface captured May 23rd and seen from a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometres) shows finer details coming into view as NASA’s Dawn spacecraft spirals down to increasingly lower orbits. Resolution in the image is about 1,600 feet (480 metres) per pixel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.The view shows numerous secondary craters, formed by the re-impact of debris strewn from larger impact sites. Smaller surface details like this are becoming visible with increasing clarity as Dawn spirals lower in its campaign to map Ceres.
The region shown here is located between 13° and 51° north latitude and 182° and 228° east longitude. The image has been projected onto a globe of Ceres, which accounts for the small notch of black at upper right.
OpNav9 is the ninth and final set of Dawn images of Ceres taken primarily for navigation purposes.
The first images from the New Horizons spacecraft since late July will come back to Earth on 5 September, and scientists are salivating over what the new pictures will reveal about Pluto.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is in the process of dropping into its final, lowest-ever orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, allowing it to make repeated passes within 50 kilometres (30 miles) of the surface.
