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.
Astronomers have discovered possible evidence for water on the surface of 16 Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid in the solar system. Measuring 186 miles across and consisting of almost pure nickel-iron metal, Psyche is thought to be the remnant core of a planetary embryo that was mostly destroyed by impacts billions of years ago.
By combining data from two space observatories, astronomers have revealed something surprising: a 955-mile-wide dwarf planet named 2007 OR10 is significantly larger than previously thought. Although its 547-year-long elliptical orbit brings it nearly as close to the Sun as Neptune, 2007 OR10 is currently twice as far from the Sun as Pluto.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is now less than two months away from capture into orbit around Ceres for a 16-month study of the dwarf planet — and its cameras are already revealing tantalising surface details.