dawnmission

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  • NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI/LPI

    NASA's Dawn mission offers a closer look at the dwarf planet Ceres

    by 
    Mariella Moon
    Mariella Moon
    03.23.2016

    If New Horizons is providing us tons of info about Pluto, the Dawn mission is helping us get to know Ceres a lot better. NASA has released new photos and information that the Dawn spacecraft took and gathered in its lowest orbit around the dwarf planet. They've recently found that the brightest area on the celestial body, a spot smack-dab in the center of the Occator Crater, has a dome inside a smooth-walled pit. You can see an image of the area above, which the agency enhanced to highlight the color differences of Ceres' surface.