occatorcrater

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  • NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

    NASA's Dawn spacecraft takes a close-up of Ceres' brightest spot

    by 
    Mariella Moon
    Mariella Moon
    07.03.2018

    For its final orbit around Ceres, the Dawn spacecraft fired its ion engine possibly for the last time and dove as close to the dwarf planet as possible to fly merely 22 miles above its surface. That's the closest it's ever been to the celestial body -- the lowest altitude it reached before this was 240 miles above the surface -- and as you'd expect, the current orbit is producing some of the closest images of Ceres we've ever seen. Some of those photos are close-ups of the famous Occator Crater, the site of the dwarf planet's most famous bright spot.