Medicine & TechnologyFor months now everyone has been waiting to catch a detailed glimpse at the dwarf planet Ceres. Once Dawn entered orbit around Ceres, it spent its first month on the dark side of the dwarf planet sending back no images, of course. Now, however, the wait is over and Dawn has sent back one of the sharpest ever looking images of the previously unexplored world and the images will only get better from here.
The time has almost arrived. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back some of the first pictures of the dwarf planet, Ceres, after spending about a month approaching the world from its dark side.
Since the arrival of the Dawn spacecraft, scientists have been hard at work beginning their studies of the planet that was never meant to be. When it first started its approach, the scientific community was abuzz as the first pictures showed bright spots on the surface. Now, scientists believe that these bright spots could possibly be volcanoes of ice.
While it may be a groggy Monday morning, after most of the world lost an hour this weekend in the readjustment of our clocks, a new animation from NASA reveals that you may be luckier than their satellites who are on the clock 24 hours a day. While you may know that many of the satellites like Aqua, Aura and CloudSat pass overhead everyday at 1:30pm, no matter where you are, you may not have given their movements much thought or ever fully realized exactly how many satellites are working for the space agency. But in celebration of NASA’s newest achievement in having their Dawn satellite reach the dwarf planet Ceres, their giving us a new view of what orbiters do here at home.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has completed its eight-year journey to the dwarf planet Ceres, but what lies ahead for the history making spacecraft while it orbits the planet that was never meant to be?
After more than seven years of drifting in space, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has finally achieved its primary mission of entering orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. Becoming the first ever mission to achieve orbit around a dwarf planet, mission controllers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory received confirmation this morning that the small orbiter had finally reached its destination.
As the week draws to a close, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin the final climax of its long journey as it enters orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
NASA has received dozens of new proposals for robotic missions for launch in 2021 to explore different parts of the solar system. Scientists have submitted concepts for sending probes to the moon, asteroids, comets and other planets for a chance to win $450 million in federal funding for their mission.
To better answer Piazzi’s original questions, and some new ones that have arisen in the more than two centuries since it was first discovered, researchers with NASA developed the Dawn Spacecraft mission which was originally launched in 2007. After a successful 14-month-orbit around Vesta in the asteroid belt, Dawn is now moving onto the next dwarf planet and will arrive to Ceres within the next week. And the first question that the Dawn mission would like to answer is a glaring one, visible on the surface.
Releasing the sharpest set of images from within the asteroid belt to date, this week NASA researchers have filled the internet with their hopes for what may lie on the dwarf planet Ceres. Only a month before NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will enter orbit around the 590-mile-wide dwarf, found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the space agency is hopeful that their mission will reveal a lot more about the small planet and the secrets its surface may hold.
Only a month before starting its orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres in our solar system's main asteroid belt, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed the sharpest images of the mysterious dwarf planet to date.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft continues its approach to the dwarf planet Ceres for its planned mission. During this approach it has already snapped several images of this small planet located in the asteroid belt. And what these pictures have revealed has mystified scientists at NASA for weeks.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft has begun approaching the dwarf planet Ceres, and with a new vantage point it has snapped some of its first images of the planet showing possible craters on the surface.
A study by astrophysicists at the University of Toronto suggests that exoplanets - planets that are outside our solar system - are more likely to have liquid water, and therefore may be more hospitable to life than researchers originally thought.
NASA's Dawn Spacecraft, launched in 2007, is beginning to make its approach to Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt. Dawn's mission will make it the first craft to orbit two bodies in the solar system after spending 14 months studying the protoplanet Vesta.